Looking to court Black voters, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, now one of the dozen or so Democrats running for president in 2020, has come up with a plan to promote economic equality for Black communities.
Buttigieg has dubbed his plan “the Douglass Plan” after abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass and it is sort of a “new Marshall Plan” aimed at creating economic prosperity for African Americans.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 13: Barron Channer Jamarlin talks to entrepreneur Barron Channer, founder of Miami -based Woodwater Investments, which focuses on real estate development and tech.
The Douglass Plan is “calling for reducing the number of Americans incarcerated by half. He also says he would triple the number of entrepreneurs from underserved areas and particularly entrepreneurs of color within 10 years, which he says would create 3 million jobs and $660 billion in new wealth for Black communities,” NBC reported.
Buttigieg is also calling for the expansion of the number of successful small businesses in Black communities and an increase of the rate of federal contracts awarded to minority and women-owned firms.
“Replacing racist policies with neutral ones will not be enough to deliver equality. We must actively work to reverse these harm,” Buttigieg said in an op-ed explaining the plan in the Charleston Chronicle.
Buttigieg has also said he would create a commission to figure out the best way to do slavery reparations. He has said he supports a program to address long-term structural inequities that linger from the era of slavery.
“Buttigieg also proposed a modern Voting Rights Act that would ban voter ID laws and require potentially discriminatory voting law changes to be reviewed by the Justice Department,” The Hill reported.
“Replacing racist policies with neutral ones will not be enough to deliver equality,” he wrote. “We must actively work to reverse these harms, which is why I propose that we invest in equity with a plan as bold as the Marshall Plan.”
Buttigieg needs to boost his support among Black voters. In South Carolina, for example, he received zero percent support in one poll from May.
