The mural ‘We Shall Always March Ahead’ by Muhammad Yungai is displayed on the side of the Privado Grooming Barbershop in the Vine City neighborhood of Atlanta.
Raymond Boyd | Michael Ochs Archives | beautiful pictures
Legendary civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up and preached in Atlanta’s old 4th Precinct.
Soon, that neighborhood will also be the site of a new guaranteed income test that bears his name.
The program is expected to provide more than $13 million in transfers over the next two years to 650 Black women in that neighborhood as well as other suburban and rural areas of Georgia.
Its name – In Her Hands – was inspired by a quote by King.
In a 1967 speech, “Where do we go from here?” launched in Atlanta, King said“The dignity of the individual is sublimated when the decisions concerning his life are in his hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows he has the means to seek self-improvement.”
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In Her Hands is the fruit of a task force that includes local community leaders including Pastor John Vaughn, executive pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King served as co-pastor with his father. and the site of his funeral after his assassination in April 1968.
Hope Wollensack, executive director of the Georgia Fund of Opportunity and Resilience (GRO), which has partnered with participating community leaders, said when the task force was created two years ago, no It is clear that guaranteed income will be the recommendation of the participating community leaders. -Profit organization GiveDirectly to launch the initiative.
Since then, however, monthly child tax credit payments and stimulus checks have helped change the conversation around direct income, Wollensack said. Furthermore, the recommendation from the task force was clear about the potential benefits of this type of financial assistance.
“It’s not just putting cash in the hands of women, but greater self-determination and choice in the hands of women and their families,” Wollensack said.
Guaranteed income programs inspired by King’s legacy are evolving.
Mayor for Guaranteed Income has more than 60 participating cities around the country. It was founded in 2020 by Michael TubbsThe mayor of Stockton at the time launched the first program in that city.
Separate guaranteed income programs have also been established to specifically target mothers, including Magnolia Mother Trust in Jackson, Mississippi and more recently, Bridge Project in New York City.
The Magnolia Mother Trust is the only program that includes only low-income black mothers. It provides $1,000 per month for 12 months to women living in federally subsidized housing in Jackson.
The results of tracking the second group of recipients showed that mothers’ ability to pay their bills on time increased from 27% to 83%; emergency savers increased from 40% to 88%; and their ability to pay for food increased from 64% to 81%.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was released from prison with a $2000 fine, he was greeted by his wife Coretta and children, Marty and Yoki, at the airport in Chamblee, Georgia.
Bettmann | Bettmann | beautiful pictures
Georgia’s new In Her Hands program plans to provide a special income guarantee for Black women and study how money impacts their lives.
Half of the 650 program participants are expected to receive a one-time upfront payment of $4,300 and then $700 per month for 23 months. The other half will receive $850 per month for 24 months.
The program will begin in Atlanta’s Old Four Ward neighborhood, and then expand to other predominantly Black suburban and rural areas of Georgia.
The first payments are expected to be made in the second quarter.
Distribution of funds will be handled by GiveDirectly, which has already delivered cash to recipients in programs in the US and other countries. The nonprofit is currently conducting the world’s largest universal basic income test in Kenya.
When people have guaranteed recurring payments, they use that money to reduce income fluctuations from month to month.
Sarah Moran
US Country Director for GiveDirectly
“Our research underpins the fact that when people have large sums of money, they use that money to build wealth or to build wealth,” said Sarah Moran, US Country Manager for GiveDirectly. debt reduction”.
“When people have guaranteed recurring payments, they use that money to reduce income fluctuations from month to month,” says Moran.
Erica Brown, 41, of Jackson, has been receiving monthly checks through the Magnolia Mother Trust since last April and says the monthly income is a blessing. The money earned allows her to quit her second job as a security guard at a hospital, to spend more time with her children in their 20s and 5s, who will still be there when the program ends.
An important measure of In Her Hands’ success is whether it has helped alleviate poverty among black women in Georgia.
Black women in the state are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than white women, according to a new study. Report for 2019 from the Georgia Institute of Policy & Budget. However, black women have been participating in the state workforce at a higher rate than white women for centuries, due to slave labor and farming, according to the study.
The stakes are high for In Her Hands, said Wollensack to work to help change the legacy poverty issues faced by black women and live up to the King’s legacy of fighting for justice, Wollensack speak.
“I think in a lot of ways I really feel like Dr. King is watching,” Wollensack said. “What choices will we make and who will we become and how do we live up to our values?”
