Becknell’s road map for strong Black middle class

Education and funding the historic Black colleges and universities: They “have been on life support because they’ve been underfunded,” the Rev. Charles Becknell Sr. says. “Let’s give them money for an endowment and to expand their course offerings.”

Students attending these schools, including white students, should have their student loans forgiven, and Black high school students should be given vouchers to attend community colleges of their choice tuition free.

Homeownership: While homeownership

“is essential for passing generational wealth,” Becknell says, national studies show that Black homeownership greatly lags behind white home ownership; further, financial institutions in the past have denied loans to African Americans, often based on color, he says.

The remedy is for banks to become more aggressive in funding Black home purchases and to waive down payments, as well getting more government and private support for Black-owned and -operated banks.

Reparations for struggling Black-owned mom and pop farms: “These families simply cannot get loans from the extension agents, forcing them to sell portions of their land to survive,” Becknell says. A special lowinterest loan program should be established for Black farmers, and there’s a need for more FFA (Future Farmers of America) and similar programs geared to Black kids to dissuade them from leaving the farm for the city, and to show them the opportunities that exist in the business of farming.

Other recommendations: Becknell also proposes restoration of the Voting Rights Act; mandating that companies doing business with the government have at least one Black person on their boards; providing affordable or free health care for low-income African Americans and building more health clinics in Black communities; and the end to gerrymandering that “dilutes Black votes by putting half of them on one side of a line and half on the other.”