I was born, raised and live in Ohio. I am genetically predisposed to hate Michigan, let alone spend much time thinking about its politics. But as a Black millennial who has devoted my career to achieving economic relief for our community, the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee (CBC PAC)’s endorsement last week of Haley Stevens over Dr. Abdul El Sayed in Michigan’s U.S. Senate Democratic Primary and Hakeem Jeffries’ endorsement against Donavan McKinney in the race for a seat in the U.S. Congress representing Michigan’s 13th District, were too egregious to ignore.
They are both examples of the Black political elite choosing corporate-friendly politicians over the Black working class. Regardless of the elections’ outcome, it is time for the CBC to follow the lead of a new generation of leaders who are embracing the full legacy of the civil rights movement – economic populism.
Early life experiences inspired me to focus on economic policy. As a seven-year-old, my mother packed clothes for my brother and me in trash bags to move covertly out of our house to escape my father’s rage. The decision gave us freedom but wrecked her financially. We went from a solid middle-class life on her art teacher’s salary to shopping at thrift stores because we couldn’t afford anything else. Once we received financial aid to attend an elite college preparatory school, I started to experience firsthand the income inequality that had been growing in the U.S. since the 1980s. I committed to leveling the playing field for families like mine.
After learning about public policy in college, I moved to Washington, D.C., intent on figuring out how to help ensure other parents didn’t have to be Herculean, like my mother, to get by. In those early jobs, including at the Federal Trade Commission and a think tank, I met Clinton administration and Capitol Hill veterans who seemed smart and savvy. And even though the D.C political environment felt disconnected from the economic stress of everyday Americans, I still felt like we were on the same team, trying to do something about it.
Related: As America Turns 250, Its Capital Still Can’t Vote
I maintained this illusion of shared purpose throughout Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Obama regularly critiqued the role of special interests and lobbyists in policymaking and pledged that people in his administration would not use their positions as a springboard for lobbying jobs. He attacked Hillary Clinton for supporting the Iraq war, later intensifying the attack to be more explicitly populist, highlighting how war money should be spent at home. He explicitly criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement. These policy positions excited me most, but, like so many in our community, I was also thrilled by the prospect of electing the first Black president. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was how the unity around Obama’s historic identity victory masked a growing divergence that had been brewing since the late 1980s between the corporate-friendly policies of the Black political elite, including the CBC, and the populist sentiment among the Black working class.
Jesse Jackson’s political arc embodies this tension. His presidential campaigns in the 1980s were explicitly populist, as reflected in his Democratic National Convention speeches. In 1984, he criticized the Reagan administration’s tax cuts for enriching large corporations and defense contractors at the expense of working people. He advocated for the rights of farmers and small business owners who were struggling to stay afloat. In his iconic 1988 DNC speech, he made clear that his rainbow coalition was “fundamentally moved from racial battlegrounds by law, to economic common ground.” This rhetoric was consistent with that of his fellow civil rights leaders, who, after securing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, unveiled a “Freedom Budget for All Americans” to abolish poverty through large-scale federal investment in initiatives like universal healthcare, recognizing that racial justice was impossible without economic justice.
But as Abby Phillip’s recent book details, by the early 1990s, the idea of a “New Democrat” was emerging, one who was culturally liberal on issues like race but fiscally conservative and business-friendly. Bill Clinton embraced this philosophy, and, though at first reluctant, Jackson made the explicit decision to pivot away from calls for populist government policy and focus instead on boycotting and negotiating with corporations. As a reward, Clinton appointed many of his Black campaign alumni to top government jobs. Ron Brown became the Secretary of Commerce. Alexis Herman was named the Secretary of Labor. All the while, the Clinton administration’s economic policies benefited Wall Street to the detriment of the Black working class. And though some in the CBC pushed back, for the most part, they held the line and defended Clinton.
It was this neoliberal version of the United States— a few elites getting ahead while the rest of the working class suffered— from which I believed Barack Obama was breaking away. Instead, by the time I joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a regulatory lawyer during his second term, it was already quite clear that leaders in his administration like Larry Summers were beholden to the same corporate interests Obama had critiqued. The Big Banks’ financial crisis wiped away Black Americans’ wealth held in our homes and 401(k)s, but the government did little to help. Instead, taxpayer dollars were used to support the banks. The CBC again held the line, defending the first Black president, even as Black working-class rage grew. CBC members then went on to back Hillary Clinton over populist candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary, assuring us she was the antidote to Trump and MAGA’s racism. We all know how that turned out.
Which leads me back to this year’s Michigan Democratic Senate primary. By 2019 and two years into the Trump administration, I was beginning to seriously doubt that the Democratic Party and the CBC prioritized helping the Black working class. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had enacted a blacklist against any consulting firm that supported a primary challenger running against an incumbent in response to Black progressives like Ayanna Pressley launching such races free of corporate PAC money and on a populist economic agenda. The CBC PAC held the line, endorsing her opponent. Grappling with these inconsistencies, I was invited to a Haley Stevens fundraiser in Chicago when I passed through town. I asked her point-blank if she thought the party should stay neutral in primary elections. She stumbled over a response about how she had to protect her colleagues in Congress.
Her reply was one of the last straws before I decided that I had to do something more directly political. I launched a primary challenge that year against a Democratic incumbent CBC member. Dr. Abdul El Sayed did an event for my campaign with students at The Ohio State University without knowing me because I supported Medicare for All and did not accept corporate PAC money. There was no media coverage. No fanfare. He just shared a frustration with a system that wasn’t working for the American people and a willingness to support anyone trying to do something about it.
I didn’t win that race, but many other Black progressives running on an economic populist agenda have. In addition to Ayanna Pressley, Congresswoman Summer Lee has represented part of the Pittsburgh area since 2023, supporting populist policies like breaking up monopolies. Chris Rabb just won a primary in Philadelphia this spring, running to expand public infrastructure, ensuring he will replace a more corporate-friendly CBC member. And in Memphis, Justin Pearson is running explicitly to tax the rich.
This new crop of Black politicians, all of whom are under 60, reflects the policy preferences of many younger Black people. For example, in Michigan recently, when the CBC tried to attack white congressional candidate Will Lawrence for criticizing an older generation of Black leadership who defend the status quo, younger Black community leaders and elected officials came to his defense, admitting he was giving voice to a real conversation in the community about the need for a different type of Black political leadership.
The CBC endorsing centrist non-Black Democrats like Haley Stevens and against Black progressive Democrats like Donavan McKinney is no surprise. Most of their members take significant corporate PAC money. Many accept money from AIPAC, in name an organization to support Israel, but also a tool of the global economic elite to capture the U.S. government to profit at the expense of the working class. Haley Stevens is cut from this same neoliberal cloth. Our civil rights heroes and, for a time, Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama, knew it would take an economic populist revolution to offer stable lives to the Black working class. Dr. Abdul El Sayed and a new generation of Black leaders have courageously taken up their baton. It’s time for the CBC (and its PAC) to do the same.
Morgan Harper is a former U.S. congressional candidate and the co-founder of Columbus Stand Up!, a grassroots civic engagement organization in Columbus, Ohio.
