"The best way to boost Black Americans' fortunes is to ensure tight labor markets. That requires stemming the influx of foreign workers."

The Chicago Tribune today published the first must-read op-ed of the new year, a piece by Frank Morris titled: A major culprit in the wage gap between Blacks and whites is Americas immigration policy.

Morris deftly hammers potent facts and quotes into a concise argument that any reader can put in their back pocket. This op-ed has the power to shatter the shallow narratives that all-too-often dominate our political discussion and pave a path for a more productive conversation on some of the most explosive issues of our generation.

The most helpful thing you can do after reading is to immediately share it on social media, comment (if you have a Tribune subscription), or submit a letter to the editor.

The only way to combat bad content that is shared is to share good content.

Here are some extensive segments of the column (for those who are not subscribers and are limited by the paywall):

But one of the biggest - yet most underexplored - culprits {of the racial wealth gap} is America's immigration policy. Throughout our nation's history, employers have preferred to hire newly arrived foreigners, who will often work for rock-bottom wages, instead of Black workers.

When policymakers have periodically scaled back the influx of those foreign laborers, Black Americans' earnings have soared - only to fall again once our leaders turn the immigration spigots back on. Humanely limiting immigration is a matter of racial and economic justice for Black Americans.

As Roy Beck's new book, "Back of the Hiring Line," thoroughly documents, Black Americans enjoy good economic opportunities only in tight labor markets. That's why, in the decades following the Civil War, Black leaders like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph all favored restricting immigration to help free enslaved people and their descendants.

...As Du Bois explained, "The stopping of the importing of cheap white labor on any terms has been the economic salvation of American black labor."

He wasn't exaggerating. Thanks to reduced labor market competition, Black Americans were finally able to win better wages and working conditions. The real incomes of Black men grew fourfold from 1940 to 1980 - even faster than the 2 1/2-fold increase for white men - and the share of Black men in the middle class soared from 22% to 71%.

...the blame rests on our elected representatives, who have repeatedly done the bidding of Big Business and ignored multiple blue-ribbon commissions that all reached the same conclusion: Reducing immigration is necessary to foster Black Americans' economic development.

Consider how, in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton appointed civil rights icon Barbara Jordan to chair the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. After finding "no national interest in continuing to import lesser-skilled" foreigners, Jordan said, the commission recommended lowering immigration levels to protect American workers from unfair competition.

But when the time came to vote on bipartisan legislation that would have scaled back the influx of foreign workers, enough lawmakers - in thrall to corporate interests - banded together to defeat the bill and maintain the status quo.

Whether you are a Chicago Tribune subscriber or not, you can submit a letter to the editor in response and support:

You can also buy a copy of Roy's book (in either Kindle, Audible, or paperback form):

Thanks for all you do to go beyond the narrow narrative framing of today's journalism.