March 28, 2024                        

                  Office of American Freedmen Affairs - City of Boston  

(Contact Antonia Edwards of Boston via email - antonia@usadof.org)

 On behalf of the American Freedmen Coalition, which includes organizations such as, United Sons and Daughters of Freedmen, SoliDarity, community Black churches/institutions, other advocates and grassroots organizations, and others. We are seeking your unwavering support for an Office of American Freedmen Affairs (see example) for the City of Boston. This office will initially primarily be responsible for obtaining, processing and archiving of records for applicants with intent of verifying their American Freedmen (descendant of formerly enslaved/emancipated persons in the United States), protected class status. This will be an imperative and much needed part of the process to manage the City of Boston’s Reparation Task Force recommendations.

This brief offers an overview of a proposed Office of Freedmen Affairs in the City of Boston. This Office Of American Freedmen Affairs (OAFA) is an agency that will provide the City of Boston’s American Freedmen population with responsive remedial assistance. Having such an agency that will specifically address the needs in the areas of home ownership, land ownership, educational attainment, vocational training, health and wellness, and business ownership. This will help to bring about self-sufficiency to the over one half million American Freedmen in the City of Boston by using the city and state’s finite resources to specifically empower the American Freedmen community of the City of Boston as opposed to the current wasteful spending of billions going towards entitlement programs that have failed to lift recipients out of poverty and to build generational wealth.

Definition: An American Freedman is a person classified as Black/African American who can trace his or her ancestry back to an emancipated person in the United States.

Purpose

An Office of American Freedmen’s Affairs would be established to specifically address the disparities faced by the City of Boston’s American Freedmen population and to better that portion of Massachusetts’s citizenry, among other purposes. Upon verification of one’s American Freedmen status, Case Management can then be immediately established to offer services in the areas of including, but limited to, the Office of American Freedmen Affairs (OAFA) shall be established for but not limited to the purposes of:

●        Channeling Massachusetts’s finite resources into programs that build self-sufficiency as opposed to current government entitlement programs that only seem to create more entitlement.

●    Building self-sufficiency among Massachusetts’s American Freedmen population

●    Gathering accurate census data counting and disaggregation for data collection

●    Providing genealogical services to better identify the Black Americans who are 

American Freedmen as opposed to those who are black immigrants so as to ensure Massachusetts’s finite resources are first and foremost going towards native born Americans who will invest solely in Massachusetts and the US as opposed to remitting resources to other countries.

●    Ensuring labor (and other) contracts are awarded proportionate to Massachusetts’s American Freedmen population (7%).

●    To promote civic education and civic engagement to create a more informed electorate. A civic education will help American Freedmen truly examine policies, and see which candidate, regardless of party, is worth voting for

●    Job workforce skills and other training

●    Home ownership and home improvement

●    Promote quality of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The accompanying legislation for the OAFA will outline the grant programs for eligible recipients. These grants will provide but are not limited to: 

1.   Pathways to home ownership

2.   More participation in farming

3.   Land ownership

4.   Vocational and employment training

5.   Home improvements and repairs

6.   Education and exposure to American Freedmen history and civic workshops to motivate apathetic registered and eligible voters.

These proposed programs will see tens of millions in additional dollars being added to Massachusetts’s economy, benefiting all who inhabit the Bay State.

NOTE: All staff of the OAFA, including those who will receive its services including grants, will be obligated to live, work, and pay taxes in the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts.

Workforce Skills and Civic Engagement

The director of the OAFA will be tasked with working with the Mayor of the City of Boston to engage with private sector advisors to develop and implement an executable plan of action to significantly increase the participation of American Freedmen in the City of Boston’s labor force. This includes the promotion of economic opportunities for individuals and businesses through initiatives like workforce training. The OAFA will also work with already established nonprofit entities to spur innovation in the expansion of civic education, workforce skills training, and to provide more opportunities for members of the City of Boston,  most underserved American Freedmen communities to become bountifully employed, productive citizens of the state of Massachusetts.

With the rise of onshoring and the development of manufacturing to increase supply chain employment in Massachusetts, the OAFA can examine barriers to employment including fees, occupational licensing, arrest records, inaccuracy, expungements, illegal immigration, lack of enforcement of E-Verify, and lack of workforce skills. These actions will lead to even greater levels of historic employment and wage growth for the American Freedmen Community and for Massachusetts overall.

Capital for Freedmen Owned Businesses

          By means of the OAFA specifically working with the City of Boston’s American Freedmen in entrepreneurship, small business ownership among American Freedmen in the City of Boston should increase for small business owners to a percentage commensurate with their population (7%-9%). This will be done via training to qualify them for grants and ongoing support to help with sustainability and success. Small business ownership has been shown to be a fruitful avenue for American Freedmen to build up the generational wealth that has long been denied to them.

The OAFA will also teach and train American Freedmen in the City of Boston, alternative ways to build credit including rent, utilities, and phone bills. The OAFA will increase the number of American Freedmen owned contracted businesses, financial services entities, and private equity investment funds through regulatory reform via budget funds in combination with traditional private investment. The OAFA will advance lending relationships with financial institutions to provide access of capital to American Freedmen businesses in Massachusetts, particularly those businesses who weren’t able to participate in PPP Loans Program and because of, have been struggling post Covid-19.

Education

With proper funding, the OAFA will foster state, and local community partnerships to provide American Freedmen children with better access to education, while providing additional educational resources, freeing them from being trapped in what are too often failing schools. The OAFA will advocate for educational flexibility that will allow public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs and give American Freedmen parents more control over their children’s education, something that has long been denied to them. The OAFA will provide grants to qualified applicants to attend Massachusetts’s esteemed Universities such as Harvard, UMass Amherst, Boston College, etc.

The OAFA will advocate and arrange for students to see the benefit and opportunities available in vocational education, create more opportunities for apprenticeships that are less expensive and have been shown to be of high educational effectiveness; target the training of American Freedmen to fill in crucial areas of labor shortages, advocate for the increase of Pell Grants for vocational schools and community colleges, and encourage more American Freedmen to enroll in JROTC and ROTC at the State’s Universities.

                                  Prosperous Freedmen Communities

The OAFA will partner with State agencies to increase home ownership by crafting programs to help prepare new homeowners which will then make them eligible for grants. These grants will especially target the most neglected and underserved communities with large American Freedmen populations so that they can help increase the value and build wealth in their Massachusetts based communities. This will generate more prosperity in American Freedmen communities in Massachusetts, especially in the rural area who have seen their populations drop precipitously in recent years.

The OAFA will do this by partnering with local and state elected officials, especially in some of the most neglected, impoverished communities in Massachusetts such as in Fall River, Brockton, and Roxbury to name a few. OAFA will seek to form projects that will beautify Massachusetts and erect new monuments to American Freedmen icons and important figures in Massachusetts such as Crispus Attucks, Prince Hall, Phillis Wheatley, Wilhelmina Marguerita Crosson and more with statues and monuments highlighting their contribution to Massachusetts, the United States of America, and in some cases, the entire globe.

The OAFA will produce more American Freedmen farmers by means of educating them on how to monetize their already existing land by building greenhouse and nursery units to produce commodities while partnering with existing farmers to assist with training new farmers. The OAFA will look to provide grants for those that successfully complete the training required for all eligible recipients, which will lead to Freedmen growing their own food to not only feed the American Freedmen families, but all other families within and beyond Massachusetts.

The OAFA will facilitate training for American Freedmen to be readily trained and able to receive state contracts at a percentage that is commensurate with their percentage of the state’s population (around 7% - 9%), and partner with local and state employers to bring about onshoring that will result in more jobs and careers for American Freedmen and all citizens of Massachusetts.

                             Disaggregation and Record Keeping

The Office Of Freedmen Affairs will take on the task of disaggregating the state's “black” population and identifying where a “black” person is from. According to a Pew Research report published January 27, 2022, one-in-ten Black people in the U.S. are immigrants. The number of Black immigrants living in the country reached 4.6 million in 2019, up from roughly 800,000 in 1980. This increase accounted for 19% of the growth in the overall Black population, which increased by 20 million during the same period. The Black immigrant population is projected to account for roughly a third of the U.S. Black population’s growth through 2060.

According to the National Bureau of Economic research, it explains that “The 1980-2000 immigrant influx, therefore, generally 'explains' about 20 to 60 percent of the decline in wages, 25 percent of the decline in employment, and about 10 percent of the rise in incarceration rates among blacks with a high school education or less.”

An Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality published June 5th, 2013, highlighted the fact that many Blacks enrolled in college are of immigrant descent. These Black immigrants came to America and were able to take advantage of “affirmative action,” a program specifically set aside by Lyndon B. Johnson’ administration to help poor American Freedmen attain a better education and employment. Because black immigrants have become major benefactors of this program, American Freedmen are finding themselves being replaced as the face of Black achievement. This is done only because there is no method by which the United States disaggregates intra-racially.

The Office Of American Freedmen Affairs will utilize its resources in assisting Massachusetts to disaggregate “Blackness” so that the necessary resources are going to help American Freedmen who in the city of Boston, are worth a mere $8 dollars. This action will also help in specifying data in areas such as crime. Is the “black” person committing the crime an American Freedmen or are they a “black” person with roots from another place? This disaggregation of data will take place in areas from incarceration rates, high schools, college graduations, employment, etc. The OAFA will be utilized in conjunction with new efforts being proposed to the Office of Management and Budget, to disaggregate ‘American Freedmen’ from immigrant groups who may share similar features and that may be labeled African Americans.

Genealogy Tracing

The OAFA will offer genealogical services to help American Freedmen trace their Massachusetts roots and also, their American roots as Massachusetts experienced a large influx during the era of Reconstruction in what is called the Great Migration.

Poverty and Homelessness

Cities like Fall River, Massachusetts where the American Freedmen are only 6% of the population, make up a staggering 42% of the people impoverished. This city would benefit overwhelmingly from the services of the OAFA. This is indicative where there is a large, or, even a small cluster of Freedmen populations in the State of Massachusetts. With a well-funded OAFA, the Freedmen residents of Fall River, or Roxbury residents in Boston, can get direct training in rural, technical, and other skills which will help boost their prospects of being gainfully employed by learning a skill tantamount to competing in today’s competitive market. Blacks overall have the highest rate of homelessness in Massachusetts with 125 people experiencing homelessness per 10,000 people in the general population. The OAFA will seek to mitigate this trend by seeking to provide shelters for the homeless while building up workforce and other skills to achieve gainful employment, business start-ups, and homeownership.

Why You Should Support The Office Of Freedmen Affairs In the City of Boston and Massachusetts

American Freedmen of Massachusetts are between 7% to 9% of the state’s population but 13% of its poor. Still, they contribute to Massachusetts’s economy. If they add to the economy as was stated by Governor Maura T. Healey on February 27, 2023, despite deep poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and other disparities they face, just imagine how much more wealth could be generated through the services specifically for this segment that will be provided as a result of the services of the Office Of Freedmen Affairs. While the office will focus specifically on individuals of the Freedmen class, the resulting boom that would occur for Massachusetts’s economy would benefit all Massachusetts, white, Asian, Native American, and all other groups.

This is not an argument against the need for government programs but instead an argument that the purpose of government programs and agencies should be to lessen the need for reliance on government programs and agencies. It is also to highlight that data that shows that self-sufficiency is what truly leads to prosperity and prosperity occurs when citizens and their families are given the resources they need to build and maintain thriving communities, raise their children by their own values, practice their faith, and build communities of cooperation, and mutual respect. This is truly the American way. With support of the legislators of Massachusetts, this American Dream of self-sufficiency and self-dependence can become a reality.

The City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts can become the first in the country to fully reverse the impoverished conditions suffered by its American Freedmen citizens for generations by showing that government intervention should solve an issue created by long standing policies and practices in the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts which has led to the impoverished state of a portion of the Freedmen population.

The political implications will reverberate for generations to come as gratitude will turn into larger election turnouts by the Freedmen community to always support those who helped lead them to a path of self-sufficiency and self-dependence.

Your support to this critical matter will not only shape the perception of the commitment of Boston Reparations Taskforce in repairing the harms against American Freedmen, the economic uplift of the American Freedmen Community model for equitable economic development, reparations, and justice, and we hope your leadership aligns with these ideals.

 

Thank you for your immediate attention to these matters.

Sincerely,

The Coalition of American Freedmen (Boston)