Publication Summary
To learn the Black community’s policy priorities and understand Black voters’ political power, Black Futures Lab commissioned HIT Strategies to conduct a poll in the spring of 2021. In the survey, Black respondents expressed concerns about COVID-19’s public health impacts and economic repercussions when the pandemic devastated communities of color across the country.
Secondly, many Black respondents felt too little attention was being paid to environmental and racial justice issues. For climate issues, Black voters wanted the Biden administration to take more steps cleaning up hazardous waste, guaranteeing universal access to clean water, and holding corporations accountable for emissions and contamination. On racial justice issues, Black participants indicated that they wanted the Biden administration to do more to address white supremacy by declaring white supremacy a national security threat, removing white supremacists from law enforcement, and calling out acts of white supremacist-fueled domestic terrorism.
President Biden and Congressional Democrat’s ability to show progress on these significant issues for Black voters will be essential to maintaining high levels of Black voter turnout in the upcoming election.
