Will Dreams for Equality Be Deferred by Gaps in Technology?

This Black History Month, it is impossible to ignore how economic disparities that have tormented Black and Brown Americans for centuries have also invited digital inequities into the most impoverished communities. Broadband funding is not enough. It is time for transformational broadband policies that support economic resilience in every household. At a time when the labor of Black and Brown Americans was still being used to build wealth from which they were systematically excluded, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was at the center of a movement to welcome all Americans into the U.S. economy. He vigorously advocated for economic reform and was unafraid to name its role in perpetuating injustice. Decades later, digital poverty has become just as problematic as economic inequality. Both make just outcomes even more distant, and grievous economic consequences inevitable, for already disenfranchised populations. With billions of dollars in the pipeline for broadband, it is imperative for both appointed and elected federal, state, and local officials to revisit MLK’s calls for economic justice and the dreams deferred by those most impacted by the digital divide. Forward-looking public policy strategies that promote widespread digital citizenship also support America’s long-overdue promise for a multi-racial democracy where all Americans have equal economic opportunities.

[Francella Ochillo is a Technology and Public Purpose Project Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.]