Building A Pro-Black World

Linking Racial and Economic Justice: The Struggle of Our Time

Steve Dubb

The legacy of the civil rights movement to provide economic equality is not lost or forgotten.

—Gary Cunningham, CEO, Prosperity Now

Last month, Prosperity Now,¹ a national economic and racial justice nonprofit, hosted its first national in‐person conference since 2018. Held in Atlanta, Georgia, the conference attracted over 1,200 people, making it one of the largest gatherings of racial and economic justice advocates since the start of the pandemic.

Historically, Prosperity Now, formerly called the Corporation for Enterprise Development, had focused on promoting tax incentive policies that support individual savings and wealth building² by low‐income Americans. This is still part of its agenda. However, Cunningham noted, the nonprofit now takes a much broader approach than seeking to “change a little program here and there.” A principal goal of the gathering in Atlanta, Cunningham insisted, was “to reimagine economic justice for all.” This reflects an organization‐wide decision “to go bold and big to focus our work exclusively on racial and economic justice.”

The opening plenary—titled “Where Do We Go from Here?”—was an explicit callback to the last book published by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1967—namely, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?³ In the book, King called for the “total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty.”⁴ King, of course, began his organizing and preaching career ...