Nearly 1 in 3 Black Americans know someone personally who has died of Covid-19. This is compared with 17 percent of adults who are Latinx and 9 percent who are white. 

This is what structural inequality looks like. 

Black and Brown communities are getting sick and dying in far greater numbers than their Latinx or White counterparts. They are facing higher levels of unemployment. And Black electoral power is threatened by voter suppression, including the closing of numerous polling sites in their communities.

UAF is committed to resourcing Black-led organizing and mutual aid. 

In Louisiana’s “Cancer alley” (an 85-mile stretch of land that has over 150 plastic refineries), a group of Black women formed Rise St. James to safeguard their community from new development. They are organizing to stop a plastic plant from being built on former slave burial grounds. Extractive industries are considered essential businesses. With UAF support, Rise St. James is continuing its awareness-raising activities while also providing health care, food, hygiene kits, and mental health support to families struggling during the pandemic.

The impact of the Black Lives Matter movement is being felt on a global scale. This extends beyond solidarity for Black Americans and has direct resonance for anti-racism movements in countries across the globe. 

In Lebanon, the Anti-Racism Movement is pushing to abolish the Kafala system, an exploitative system used to control and monitor migrant laborers. Ethiopian workers have their passports taken from them and are paid less than minimum wage for their work. As the Black Lives Matter movement has gained visibility, the Anti-Racism Movement and many other organizations across the globe are seizing the opportunity to ramp up their anti-racism work.