John,

Trump and his cronies are trying to dismantle crucial programs and services that uplift Black people and benefit countless communities across the country. We need to be pushing for the exact opposite, for life-affirming policies and services that help dismantle systemic racism.

For example, I introduced the Restoring Communities Left Behind Act to provide $5 billion to expand access to homeownership, increase housing options, and rebuild neighborhoods that have struggled from years of forced segregation and disproportionate disinvestment.

I founded the Congressional Mamas’ Caucus to advocate for mothers of color and for policies including Black maternal healthcare, affordable childcare, paid family leave, and reproductive justice.

I’ve also introduced policies to provide direct cash assistance to people in need, including to end child poverty, address youth homelessness, and pay for life-saving utility bills. I’ve supported policies demanding reparations for Black Americans and an end to the still-growing racial wealth gap.

This Black History Month, will you sign on to demand U.S. governments—especially our federal government—invest in Black communities? Instead of funneling more of our tax dollars to billionaires, we must close the still-growing racial wealth gap and address systemic anti-Black racism.

This presidential administration’s Department of Justice is ending its civil rights division’s enforcement of anti-discrimination policies. Meanwhile, the Department of Education’s civil rights’ office has ordered schools to end race-based programs or risk investigations and cuts to federal funding.

The White House and right-wing elected officials are escalating long-standing attacks on anti-racist protections for Americans. Multiple leaders of Project 2025 are white supremacist eugenicists who want segregation—they have spread lies that white people are more deserving and that white men are the true victims of racism.

They’re using an old playbook to consolidate power and wealth: They’re trying to pit us against each other and block multiracial solidarity so there’s less resistance to their efforts to get even richer at our expense. We must respond with the opposite. We must turn toward each other and build solidarity with our most oppressed neighbors.

Our federal government has the money to feed everyone, house everyone, provide universal healthcare, ensure clean water for all, and more. We must demand a government that ensures these human rights and invests in our communities’ needs.

As Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Rather than spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on war, we must push for life.  

Can you sign on today to demand life-affirming investments in our communities, especially in Black communities that have faced centuries of racist disinvestment?

Thank you. Together, we will keep demanding a country and a world where all people are free and all people can thrive with dignity.

In solidarity,

Rashida