Out Nov. 13, The Black Papers explains how decisions about health care, work, housing and voting shape Black life, and gives constituents specific proposals to bring to incoming leaders.
Black Americans deserve the power to determine their own futures, and that power depends in part on whether they can bargain for better pay, buy homes in the communities where they live and have a say in how public money is spent.
Those are the stakes of The Black Papers: A Policy Agenda for Black Liberation in the 21st Century, a collection of 26 policy briefs curated by National Black Justice Collective (NBJC) Executive Director Dr. David Johns. More than 100 scholars, organizers and policy experts contributed to the book, which traces how public decisions shape Black life and lays out changes that Congress, state governments and local officials can make.
Some of those decisions will come before the party that Black voters overwhelmingly backed in the midterms. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress last week, with roughly nine in ten Black voters supporting Democratic candidates in their local House races.
The Black Papers sets out what voters can ask of the people they helped elect, from stronger protections for workers who organize to a full year of Medicaid coverage after childbirth.
The Black Agenda 2026 Black Papers
Explore policy proposals on housing, health care, education and the economy from State of the People.
Open on State of the PeopleIn a joint statement after the election, Jeffries and Schumer said Democrats would use their new majorities to lower costs and expand access to health care. Jeffries has called for reversing Republican Medicaid cuts and restoring the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits as part of his first 100 days agenda. (Of course, what Democratic leaders actually bring to a vote and what they fight to keep in spending bills will show how far they’re prepared to go on those promises.)
“My hope is that someone of any age could pick up the Black Papers Project and be reminded that they are not crazy," Dr. Johns revealed. "The challenges that we experience, the health and economic conditions that disproportionately affect Black folks are not to a fault of our own, but they are by design.”
The briefs start with decisions people already have to make, from figuring out how to pay for a doctor’s visit to applying for a business loan, and trace them back to the rules that govern their options. For a mother on Medicaid, for example, one of those rules determines how long she keeps her health coverage after childbirth. In 2024, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was more than three times the rate for white women.
Ending Disparities in Maternal Health
State of the People examines disparities in maternal health and outlines policies to improve care for Black mothers.
Open on State of the PeopleFederal law lets states extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to a full year, and KFF counted 49 states and D.C. that had done so by July. The maternal health brief calls on Congress to make that year of coverage a national requirement and on states to reimburse doula and midwifery services.
“It is difficult to do anything if you are not well," Dr. Johns said. "And what most of us know is [the] medical industrial complex in this country works to the benefit of those who run healthcare companies, pharmaceutical companies, not patients who actually need care.”
Who gets the jobs, the contracts and the chance to own
For generations, Black workers fought for access to federal jobs that offered steady pay and benefits when discrimination limited their options in the private sector. By 2023 and 2024, Black women made up nearly 13 percent of the federal workforce, about twice their share of private-sector employment. As the Trump administration cut the civil service through layoffs and buyouts, about 95,000 fewer Black women worked for the federal government in 2025 than the year before.
The losses were part of a wider downturn that the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies described as showing signs of a Black recession. Its researchers estimated that if the share of Black adults ages 25 to 54 with jobs had held at its 2024 level, about 260,000 more people would have been working in 2025. Roughly 200,000 of them would have been Black women.
The administration also changed the rules for companies that employ workers on federal contracts. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 called for revoking the 1965 executive order that required federal contractors to take affirmative action to ensure equal employment opportunity. Trump revoked it in January 2025, and the Labor Department’s rule rescinding the regulations that enforced it took effect in October 2026.
The book’s labor brief, led by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, calls on Congress to pass the PRO Act, which would give federal regulators the power to fine employers for certain violations of workers’ organizing rights. It calls on states to restore collective bargaining rights for state and local workers where those rights have been taken away. A separate economic brief calls for raising the federal minimum wage to at least $17 an hour and tying it to inflation, so another increase would no longer depend on Congress taking a vote.
Building an Economy That Works for Us
A policy brief from State of the People on economic justice for Black communities.
Open on State of the PeopleIn The Black Papers, the business ownership brief calls for a federal loan guarantee for Black-owned businesses and public reporting on who receives federal contracts.
During his conversation with Hyvemind, Dr. Johns pointed to Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first Black mayor, who used a major airport expansion to open contracts to minority-owned firms. Access to that work, Dr. Johns said, would allow people to “build communities and create generational wealth and transform opportunities for both their families and their communities.”
Part of building generational wealth also requires access to housing and homeownership. For much of the twentieth century, the federal government made it harder for Black families to build wealth through homeownership by withholding mortgage insurance in many Black neighborhoods.
In 2025, the typical Black family had about one-ninth the net worth of the typical white family. In the book’s housing brief, former U.S. housing secretary Marcia L. Fudge and her co-authors propose giving renters and local families the first opportunity to buy a home before investors, and funding local down payment assistance for first-generation Black buyers.
Lawmakers with the power to act on these proposals also help set the rules for the elections that determine whether they stay in office. In the voting rights brief, Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown and her co-authors call for automatic and same-day voter registration and federal minimum standards for ballot access, so a person’s ability to cast a ballot depends less on where they live.
With the incoming Congress due to set its agenda, The Black Papers can give constituents a way to judge what the bills lawmakers take up would do for Black communities. Readers can use the briefs to recognize which proposals are worth organizing around and press their representatives to pass them.
As bills move through Congress and state legislatures, constituents can follow which provisions survive negotiations, how their representatives vote and what ultimately becomes law. Those decisions give voters a record to measure against the promises they heard on the campaign trail.
“Voting is important and it’s only one part of engaging in the process of holding leaders accountable,” Dr. Johns said. “And showing up to make sure people understand what our policy priorities continue to be.”
The Black Papers: A Policy Agenda for Black Liberation in the 21st Century is available to purchase on Routledge and other select retailers.
