In the final months of the Biden-Harris White House, the administration is touting the significant gains for Black-owned businesses over the past 4 years and dealing to make sure those successes proceed as President-elect Donald Trump and his administration take office.

Last week, the SBA celebrated a record variety of business applications under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – greater than 20 million, the most in a single presidential term in U.S. history.

While it’s unclear how a lot of those 20 million businesses were black-owned due to how federal data is collected, the White House noted that the variety of black households (5% to 11%) and ZIP codes with dominant racial populations black that reported ownership, the small company made significant profits.

“There has been research done that shows that small business applications increased by 198% in neighborhoods where at least 75% of the residents identify as Black,” Guzman said, adding, “It has been an incredible boom in Black entrepreneurship.”

There has been the same increase amongst women and others working at corporations owned by corporations of color.

Administrator Guzman noted that business activity growth has continued over the past few years following the pandemic, and in some cases there was significant expansion by way of geographic location and sort of business.

“We’re seeing continued growth in technology-related businesses, including digital e-commerce… they’re increasingly doing their business online and really pushing the envelope there, and we’ve seen trends of people moving out of urban centers and into other communities,” Guzman shared.

She noted that these “high-propensity businesses” mean they are “more likely to create jobs.”

Excluding the profits of black corporations, they represent only 3% of all corporations in the US, despite the fact that black Americans constitute 14% of the total population, According to to Pew Research. By comparison, white American-owned businesses make up 85% of all businesses. According to a report by the Brookings Institution emphasizesAt current growth rates, it might take Black businesses 256 years to succeed in the level of the entire Black population.

“Realistically, these growth rates lag significantly behind the pace that could alleviate racial disparities in employer-business ownership in the near future, and large structural barriers across the economy – including, but not limited to, the racial nature of investment – ​​continue to undermine transformational change,” the Brookings report said. “Given that many of these disparities are structural, solutions must be structural as well.”

The SBA has also implemented reforms akin to simplifying certification and protecting the 8A program, which provides training and federal contracts for socially and economically disadvantaged small business owners.

Despite noticeable gains for Black-owned businesses under the Biden-Harris administration, there are concerns about what a second Trump administration would mean for them in the coming years.

In addition to his latest administration’s hostility toward racial equality, Trump’s first term was criticized for the SBA’s management of the PPP loan program during the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to multiple fraud cases, Black and brown businesses have disproportionately failed to profit from the loan forgiveness program.

Congresswoman Clarke, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said any “abrupt policy change” regarding closing racial disparities in small businesses would end in Black businesses “withering on the vine just as they are growing.”

“We will need to make sure that the law is applied equally to all small businesses and that Black communities do not pay the price for… a vindictive administration,” Clarke said.

Guzman said President Biden “has been clear that diversity is our strength in this country”; he said what the SBA did “in a major way” set “a standard on which we can continue to build,” including tripling federal lending to black-owned businesses because of this of the administration’s “historic access to capital” reforms.

“Unless these changes are reversed,” she added.

For the first time in history, Alabama sends two Black representatives to the House of Representatives at the same time.

According to the so-called a feat that was not achieved even during Reconstructionthe post-Civil War era when black political power in the South was expanded as the United States attempted to include newly emancipated former slaves from the former Confederacy into full participation as American residents.

Shomari Figurs will represent Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District once he wins the seat in the November 2024 election.

This was made possible by court-ordered redistricting, which allowed the district’s black residents to elect their representatives.

On November 8, Numbers released an announcement saying it understood the importance of the case that allowed him and Republican Terri Sewell to concurrently represent Alabama in the House of Representatives.

“The opportunity for fair representation is an essential element of democracy because it gives people from different backgrounds the opportunity to make sure their voices are heard and their interests are represented,” Figura said.

Rep. Sewell, who represents Alabama’s seventh Congressional District, said the election results reflect the power of “having people in office who will fight for the issues that are important to us and the values ​​that we share.”

She continued: “The power of too many black voters in Alabama has been diluted by unfair congressional maps. By sending Shomari data to Washington, these voters finally have a chance to have a seat at the decision-making table. I look forward to having him as my partner in Congress and working on behalf of all Alabamians, especially those whose voices have not yet been fully heard.”

During Reconstruction, when the state’s population was much different than today, Alabama sent three Black men to the House of Representatives, but none of their terms overlapped.

Today, Alabama’s population is roughly 64% white and 27% black, and voter suppression that occurred shortly after the last of the three men, Rep. Jeremiah Haralson, left office in 1877 shapes black political representation in Alabama .

It wasn’t until 1992, greater than a century after Haralson left office, that Alabama sent its next black representative to Congress, Earl Hilliard, who represented Alabama’s majority-black seventh District.

For many years, the seventh District was Alabama’s only probability district, but after a federal court ordered Alabama to redraw the 2nd Congressional District, it became the state’s second-chance district.

This v case remains to be pending. Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the case, told the website he remains to be unsure whether the lawsuit could lead to greater representation of Black Alabamians.

“At no point was it a foregone conclusion. I will say this, but it is still not the case because it is a topical issue. The only reason the law needs to say this is because of the decades of resistance the state of Alabama has had to uniformly enforce civil rights and voting rights protections in every branch and at every stage of the democratic process,” Milligan said.

He continued: “I think that in every generation we have a chance to keep our state and keep our nation with the values ​​enshrined in our Constitution, because freedom, justice and fairness are words of action.”

Bernard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, can also be a plaintiff in the lawsuit and shares Milligan’s concerns, but hopes the court will uphold the lawsuit’s results.

“I think the courts can’t help but recognize that the state of Alabama has acted in such a way as to create confusion in the district and that they will rule in favor of keeping the district as it is,” Simelton told the Journal.

He continued: “It showed that once again, when Black people are given the opportunity to get elected and go to the polls, they will do it and choose the person they want to represent them.”

A caller identifying himself as Rick, a Republican from Indiana, called C-Span Sunday to remind viewers what people in power looked like 70 years ago.

Or perhaps it was all a joke. Or a challenge. Or the results of one too many moonshines.

Or perhaps it serves as a reminder that Donald Trump’s re-election has empowered racists to say the silent part out loud.

Rick, from Crawfordville, Indiana, was clearly wanting to be noticed, telling the show’s black host, Kimberly Adams, that in keeping with the Bible, “men should rule the home” and girls should “just clean.”

“But anyway, sidebar, you know, ever since Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed, boy, chaos has gone to hell, it’s gone hand in hand with the Democrats.” Rick said. “And what really annoys me, Kimberly, is that these people of color are always saying Trump is so bad.”

Rick’s use of the word “colourful”, a derogatory term utilized by more polite racists as an alternative choice to the N-word, tells you all the pieces it’s good to learn about his standpoint.

But if there was any doubt, Rick didn’t back down from his own Bull Connor-inspired conversation topics (Connor was Birmingham, police commissioner in Alabama for 24 years, famous for using fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights demonstrators).

“Can’t they think back to the time of their ancestors when the British came to them and things like that?” he asked. “I don’t understand why the hell people of color, Republicans, were the ones who released them. The Democrats held them there for slavery. I just don’t understand it.”

For those wondering why Adams didn’t chime in, well, that is not how it works for a C-Span host. Company policy requires them to maintain their opinions to themselves.

But Adams needed to quietly have a good time when Rick’s line began to creak.

“Rick, your line is breaking a little,” she said hopefully.

Unfortunately, Rick’s line got here back in time to lecture Black people on why they needs to be more grateful.

“If it weren’t for Abraham Lincoln, these guys wouldn’t have had a basketball game or a football game,” he said, before concluding with a warning from the Bible, issue of Revenge.

“Seriously, weather-wise, it’s going to be bad in the south,” Rick said. “So all you people, Democrats in the South, you better repent now because the storm is coming your way.”

It’s unclear whether Rick is an actual person or an actual parody, but commenters on Raw Story, which published the story on Monday, mostly took him literally.

“He’s just some idiot who probably still lives in his mother’s basement (basements are a thing in rural Indiana),” one viewer said. “Don’t shit yourself here. Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania are full of people who know nothing about anything outside their local inbreeding bubble.”

Another said that Rick is just not only a throwback, but in addition a glance into America’s Trumpian future:

“MAGA rats are getting closer to using the n-word in national media. Good luck with kindness, America, if they can pull it off. Where does the GOP find these simpletons?”

Another commenter, borrowing a page from Trump, questioned Rick’s roots:

“I bet he graduated from a school in Florida.”