DURING the first presidential candidates’ debate in 2024, hoping to challenge Joe Biden’s handling of immigration along the southern border of the United States, Donald Trump asserted that immigrants were “taking Black jobs.” The phrase, fraught with racist innuendo that suggested a certain low status for African Americans among workers in the country’s labor market, both baffled and enraged.
“What are black jobs,” asked some Black leaders, including some news anchors.
Trump’s declaration prompted a slew of social media memes in which African Americans posted pictures of themselves and those they admired in various states of readiness or performance of their so-called “Black jobs.” There were African American surgeons, judges, bioengineers, investment bankers, small business owners, television and radio personalities and others on their so-called black jobs.

There was Ketanji Jackson, recently appointed African American Supreme Court Justice, in her black robe on her black job. U.S. Secretary of the Army Lloyd Austin on his black job. (I just retired, again, as President Joe Biden ended his term.) U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Rep. Joe Neguse on their black jobs.

“I think [Trump] stepped on a landmine when he brought that up,” said MSNBC political talk show anchor Ali Velshi.
While those involved in the postings on X, Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram seemed to be making fun, not unlike most humor or political satire, they presented indisputable evidence of the advancement of Black people in every stratum of American society-- social, cultural, political and economic. African Americans clearly are no longer tokens. A significant percentage of the population are leaders in places that had once been alien territories.
In the past 20 years, African Americans quietly assumed control of major corporations, universities and colleges--even the more prestigious Ivy League institutions. Blacks run significant trade organizations like the American Association of Retired People (AARP), with a membership of more than 30 million people and offices in all 50 states including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia; it is a prime influencer of public policy and politics in the country. African Americans are also in charge of philanthropic institutions, including the Ford Foundation and Andrew Mellon Foundation.
“Doors have been opened in higher education, government and the private sector in [a] sixty-year period. That’s important. Every measure shows progress,” said National Urban League President and former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial during a 2024 interview with the Associated Press upon the release of the organization’s annual report “The State of Black America.”
According to Pew Research Center “In 1965, there were no Black U.S. senators or governors, and only five members of the House of Representatives were Black.” In 2021, 57 House members in the new Congress were Black…putting the share of Black House members about on par with the share of the overall U.S. population that is Black.”

Morial and others are not fully satisfied with efforts to achieve parity, however. They are right: much remains to be done. For example, only one Black person—Wes Moore—currently serves as governor of any state in the United States.
However, if racism—institutional racism—is entrenched than Blacks, as a group, have effectively stood to challenge it. The depth and breadth of their progress in this 21st century is without precedence—well, except maybe for that period in America after the Civil War known as Reconstruction; it was short lived, however.
Today, critical sections of the country’s corporate and political infrastructure are in the hands of African Americans. Yes, there are a bunch of black jobs. According to Governing Magazine in 2021, 10 % of the 7500 legislators serving in state houses were Black; only 13 were Republicans. In 2023, the state of Pennsylvania swore in its first lieutenant governor, Austin Davis.
None of this has been by happenstance. Nor is it a result of the political reality of a woman vice president who is mixed race but identifies as African American and who was seeking (unsuccessfully it would turn out) to become the first female president of the United States.
If we contextualize these developments globally, they are not as far-fetched as some might think. After all, the majority of the world’s population can be described as comprised of people of color. That includes Blacks. Further, consider the various movements for freedom and equality, the path to African-American dominance—political and otherwise-- was set years ago.
“The ways people of color have experience the world up to this point can affect how they lead,” Darren Isom, Cora Daniels and Britt Savage wrote in a June 2022 article in “Stanford Social Innovation Review.”
“This goes beyond experience of oppression and historic marginalization to include the connection, meaning and joy these leaders can draw from their respective cultures and communities,” the trio added.
In my book, The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the New Age of Black Leaders, I identified African American politicians on the rise at the opening of the 21st century, labeling them as transitioners; they were mostly bridges from the old guard and old-style leadership. They included Morial, Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.
Then-Clarke-Atlanta University associate provost William Boone asserted that “The Black community is coming to a point where it is a bit more sophisticated in what it wants in its leadership. The expectations have moved from symbolism to substance.”
Interestingly, Democratic pollster Ron Lester predicted that the new leaders would not have the swagger of members of Black America’s political old guard--Coleman Young or Marion Barry, for example.
Lester was wrong.

Who will forget U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett “Bleach-blonde-bad-built-butch-body” clapback to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism. Call it the alliteration that captured the world’s attention. Those words certainly matched the cultural strut of the previous generation of African-American political leaders. What’s more, Crockett has been in the forefront of groundbreaking resolutions and legislation including “The Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023”, which gives women right to end or continue a pregnancy.
Interestingly, many African Americans are unaware of the magnitude of their influence on the daily public and private sector activities in the United States. Recently, I mentioned the names of two highly placed Black corporate leaders to a published author who lives in Washington, DC and is fairly politically active, she did not know either of the individuals I cited.
Consider, for example that the Smithsonian Institution, the organization that drives the collection, preservation and presentation of the country’s history and culture, is led by an African American male—Lonnie Bunch. The management of The Democratic National Committee, one of the two primary established political organizations in the country, is under the control of Jamie Harrison, a Black man from the south.
The Black dominance on display is not constrained in the political arena, however. Many people may not know that when they reach for that home appliance in the Lowe’s store near their neighborhood, Marvin Ellison, a Black man, runs that corporation. He was one of the people I mentioned to the book author with whom I was sharing dinner; she had never heard of him, although he had once been chair and chief executive officer of J.C. Penney.
In 2022, Craig Arnold, another Black man, was head of General Electric. Fifty-something year old Thasunda Ducket is president and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of American College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA), which is a Fortune 100 finance services organization. Roger W. Ferguson Jr, who served on the Federal Reserve Board from 1999 through 2016, had been CEO of TIAA. In other words, we are experiencing Black generational leadership—not one offs.
Decisions at MSNBC are made by its president, Rashida Jones, the first Black woman to run a major television network. Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett was a lead scientist on the Moderna vaccine team. Mellody Hobson is chair of Starbucks Board of Directors.
Truth be told, this is the tipping point in Black America. We know from history that the concept of tipping point was captured to describe the flight of white citizens from communities after African Americans arrived in a neighborhood or a school. However, the positioning and control of Black people as the new interior infrastructure of the country is not the result of such migration. Rather this documentable unprecedented change is the result of the political and economic power amassed through hard work and the smart strategic maneuvering of African Americans.
“Did we ever figure out what a Black job is? Asking for me,” Malcolm Kenyatta, the young Pennsylvania Democrat who was then serving as a surrogate for Biden’s campaign, asked on X (formerly known as Twitter).
The answer to that question is the foundation for INSIDE BLACK: African Americans Are Becoming The Infrastructure of Corporate, Cultural and Political U.S., the book I am writing for Bancroft Press, one of the nation's leading indie presses. I vigorously argue, through assiduous documentation and illustrations, that Blacks have become the critical interior of every segment of American society. While some may consider them marginal, the facts suggest they are fast becoming indispensable.
While the foundation of jonetta rose barras' forthcoming book, this essay also resets the conversation for the next four years as Donald J. Trump moves into the White House as the United States' 47 president.
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