April 07, 2022

Caucus on Black Women and Girls Introduces Resolution to Center Black Women in Policymaking

Today, the co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, Congresswomen Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Robin Kelly (IL-2), and Yvette Clarke (NY-9) introduced a resolution to consider legislative proposals found in the caucus’s March report, “An Economy for All: Building a ‘Black Women Best’ Legislative Agenda” to “repair the historical disparities that Black women endure and secure an economy that works for everyone.”

On March 24, the Caucus on Black Women and Girls released the Black Women Best Agenda, a 133-page comprehensive policy framework, created by Janelle Jones, the first Black woman to serve as chief economist at the Department of Labor, that centers Black women at the root of policymaking to achieve a more equitable and just future for all. Black women are among the last to benefit during times of economic growth and the last to recover from downturns. If government brings Black women from the margin to the center and intentionally creates policies that pull Black women out of economic precarity and into economic prosperity, then everyone will benefit.

The resolution is cosponsored by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty (OH-03) and Reps. Barbara Lee (CA-13), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Gwen Moore (WI-04), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Brenda Lawrence (MI-14), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-At Large).

The resolution is endorsed by Action Center on Race and the Economy, Center for Law and Social Policy, Demos, In Our Own Voice; National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, Insight Center for community Economic Development, Just Harvest, Liberation for Us, Liberation in a Generation, Princeton Theological Seminary, Springboard To Opportunities, The South, Youth First Initiative, and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. 

Text of the resolution can be found here.