South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has struggled to build support from black voters, told CNN last week that he believed his policies will help him find support from black Americans, today unveiled his “Douglass Plan,” named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
CNN reports: ‘In the new details of the plan, Buttigieg has proposed: increasing federal funding for historically black colleges and universities, increasing investments in minority-held depositories and mandating 25% of government contracts go to minority owned businesses. The plan would also seek to reduce incarceration by 50% at the state and federal level and abolish private federal prisons, per a release from the Buttigieg campaign.The plan also wants to address “the underrepresentation of Black Americans in the health workforce and train our existing health workforce to combat bias — especially racial bias — when treating patients,” hitting a topic Buttigieg has touched on while stumping on the campaign trail.'
NPR adds: “His ‘Douglass Plan' aims to establish a $10 billion fund for black entrepreneurs over five years, invest $25 billion in historically black colleges, legalize marijuana, expunge past drug convictions, reduce the prison population by half and pass a new Voting Rights Act to further empower the federal government to ensure voting access.”
Said Buttigieg, rolling out the plan on NPR's Morning Edition: “If you're a white candidate, it is twice as important for you to be talking about racial inequity and not just describing the problem — which is fashionable in politics — but actually talking about what we're going to do about it and describing the outcomes we're trying to solve for.”
