JOHN,

Today is Juneteenth’s 160th anniversary, marking 160 years since African Americans won freedom from slavery.

The struggle for Black liberation continues, and I promise I will keep fighting for Black folks in Michigan’s 12th congressional district and across the country.

This week for Juneteenth, I spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives to urge my colleagues in Congress to honor our Black neighbors by fighting for what’s long-overdue, including reparations, Black maternal health equity, investments for HBCUs, and real protections for voting rights.

Detroiters know that reparations are not just about beginning to repair the past, they’re also about addressing the present-day impacts of institutional racism. We see this in the growing Black-white wealth gap, health gap, and homeownership gap.

I have the honor and responsibility of representing a district where African Americans make up the largest racial group, and I’m serious about showing up for my Black neighbors. That includes raising money for local racial justice organizations and working in partnership with my constituents to develop policies for racial justice, economic and housing justice, environmental justice, and civil rights protections.

Recently, I joined local groups and racial justice scholar Dr. Ibram X. Kendi for a press conference to challenge Detroit’s discriminatory property tax system—which taxes the least expensive homes six times more than the most expensive homes.

With unaffordable property tax bills, lower-income homeowners in our majority-Black city are threatened with unjust foreclosures and displacement. This injustice continues nationwide, with Black homeowners paying 10 to 13 percent higher property tax bills on average. I’ll keep demanding housing justice and advocating for the human right to housing.

In partnership with Black-led Michigan group Mothering Justice, I co-founded the Congressional Mamas Caucus to advocate for mothers of color and working-class families.

We’ve pushed for affordable childcare, paid leave, reproductive justice, and the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act. Last week we heard from dads who shared their powerful stories about the urgent need to address the Black maternal health crisis. I promise to keep fighting for an equitable health system with culturally affirming care that truly supports Black women and birthing people.

In Congress, I’ve passed legislation to address racial inequities, including expanding Black homeownership and ending banks’ denial of small-dollar mortgage loans, banning medical debt from appearing on credit reports, funding home repairs to keep people in their homes, and addressing our country’s crisis of lead poisoning.

I also created the bipartisan Get the Lead Out Caucus to push for urgent action to remove dangerous lead pipes across the country. We brought members of Congress to Michigan communities with lead contamination to hear directly from community leaders.

Thousands of Detroiters have had their access to water shut off because of lead contamination or an inability to pay skyrocketing water bills. Early in the pandemic, I led successful efforts to secure a $1.1 billion water assistance fund to prevent water shutoffs and help people with water costs. I’m still leading policies to ensure that utilities—like water and power—are treated like the human rights they are.

Here are some relevant policies I’ve also introduced:

• The Justice for All Act, which would restore and strengthen the protections in our country’s crucial civil rights laws. It would combat intentional and unintentional discrimination against people based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, or national origin—clarifying the definition of “race” to include race-related traits like hair texture. It would also prohibit racial profiling in police activity and end qualified immunity for government employees such as police officers.

• The Prohibit Auto Insurance Discrimination Act, which would stop auto insurance companies from using anti-Black, predatory practices to set auto insurance rates based on income, credit score, education levels, zip code, and other racial proxies unrelated to driving history. Despite being one of the most impoverished areas in the country, metro Detroit’s car insurance rates are the most expensive in the country. Auto insurance discrimination keeps people in the cycle of poverty.

• The Cumulative Impacts Act, which would address environmental racism and block corporate polluters from continuing to treat Black and brown communities as dumping grounds.

• The BOOST Act, which would uplift 45% of people living in poverty instantly by providing refundable tax credits to individuals and families.

• The End Childhood Poverty Act, which would create a universal, monthly child allowance of over $400 per child—including the lowest-wealth families who are traditionally left out of the tax credit system.

• The Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act, which would release eligible people from jails, prisons, and detention centers during the pandemic.

• The Public Banking Act, which would expand access to banking, credit, and loans for marginalized people who have been systematically shut out of our nation’s private banks.

• The Tenant Empowerment Act, which would strengthen HUD tenant protections and provide tenants with the tools necessary to improve the quality of their homes.

• The Medical Debt Cancellation Act, which would eliminate all medical debt held by millions of Americans.

• The Public Housing for the 21st Century Act, which would increase urgently-needed affordable housing production.

I will keep pushing for racial and economic justice. And I’ll continue pushing back against the White-Supremacist-in-Chief’s racist attacks on our communities—such as his travel ban on Black and brown people from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

I’m co-leading the NO BAN Act to block travel bans, and I’m speaking out about how our country’s anti-Black racism and policing leads to disproportionate detention and deportation rates for Black immigrants.

I’ve held Customs and Border Patrol accountable for its abuses against Haitian immigrants, and I’m demanding the Trump administration reinstate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants living in the U.S. I will never back down in the fight for immigrants’ rights, including Black immigrants’ rights.

I also know that my job as a public servant includes helping my constituents through everyday challenges. In my district, my team and I created three Neighborhood Service Centers that have resolved more than 11,000 constituent cases. We’ve returned over $6 million back to district residents by helping them with back pay, Social Security and disability benefits, veterans’ benefits, debt reduction, and more.

I’ve secured over $55 million in federal funding for 25 local community projects—including replacing dangerous lead pipes, providing affordable housing for predominantly Black youth, cleaning up industrial pollution, and expanding clinics in the effort toward health equity.

I’m committed to dismantling systemic racism, including by investing in Black communities that have experienced years of disinvestment.

I promise I will always push back against discriminatory policies and dehumanizing rhetoric. I will keep fighting to end poverty and defending vital programs nationwide like Job Corps, Head Start, Medicaid, and SNAP.

And remember: Change doesn’t start from the Oval Office or the halls of Congress, it starts on the streets when the people demand it. I’m grateful for generations of Black activists who have expanded people’s rights and imaginations—and built transformative practices for community-led justice and care.

We all deserve to live with dignity and safety. Together, we’ll keep demanding a government that invests in people’s needs rather than mass death, deportations, policing, and prisons. We will keep fighting for Black liberation and equity for all people.

In solidarity,

Rashida