Thanks to everyone who joined us for our very first Change the Story event! We are so grateful to our media partners for joining us; thank you for sharing your insights on lifting Black voices and centering Black experiences in the media – and keeping it all the way real. And thanks to our friends, family, and community members for showing up and showing your support for this essential topic. We’re excited to share a recording and some highlights from the event next week. Sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already to get it direct to your inbox. And, we highly encourage you to follow Cheyanne, Justin, and Jessica on social media, and to listen to The Switch Up, Cheyanne’s podcast for The Hill.

Happening this weekend, Black Californians United for Early Care and Education is hosting the BlackECE Symposium, which will serve as a platform for early educators, researchers, policymakers, advocates, families and community stakeholders to convene, collaborate, and innovate for Black early care and education. The event is taking place Friday, August 9 through Saturday, August 10th in Sacramento, California. Learn more and register here.

“Black voters show up. We show up despite voter suppression and intimidation.” Natishia June, Black Futures Lab Field Director, talked about data from the 2023 Black Census Project in a new piece for the San Francisco Chronicle. Launched by the Black Futures Lab in 2022, this is the largest survey of Black people in the United States since the Reconstruction era, successfully engaging over 200,000 Black people from across the U.S. As Natishia said to the Sacramento Bee: “no other survey sheds light on Black attitudes and opinions across demographics and geography like the Black Census. Every day policy is made about us, without us. We launched the Black Census to transform that.”

According to the research, Black voters are also concerned about low wages, gun violence, and schools. A vast majority of Black Americans trust Kamala Harris and distrust Donald Trump – 71% compared to 5%. To learn more, read the 2023 Black Census Project executive summary, this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee, or you can see a summary of the findings in this virtual briefing on the latest data.

And this week, Black to the Future Action Fund, the C4 arm of Black Futures Lab, launched the Black Economic Agenda based on findings from the 211K+ respondents to the Black Census Project: Black people want an economy where Black people can thrive. The event brought together Black to the Future Lab leadership, friends, and community members to share the roadmap to get there, and Change Consulting CEO Bilen Mesfin Packwood was there for all of it! Watch this interview with Kristin Powell, Principal of Black Futures Lab and Black to the Future Action Fund, on Yes! Magazine’s show, Rising Up with Sonali.

According to Dolores Huerta, the current voter registration system in California works to maintain institutional racism rather than using technology to open the gates for eligible but unregistered voters, a majority of whom are people of color, lower income people, and people from other underrepresented groups. That’s why she has been advocating for SB 299 which would expand upon California’s “motor voter law,” which required the DMV to start offering residents the option to register to vote when they applied for a driver’s license or a state ID, by automatically registering eligible voters. Learn more in this piece from the Sacramento Bee.

Last Saturday, Asian Health Services and Asian Pacific Environmental Network held the Community Safety Education Series, which consisted of five workshops for Chinese elders from Oakland’s historic Chinatown to explore the roots of crime and violence in their communities and others, and gain insights into advocating for a safer, more inclusive community. Change is proud to have supported Asian Health Services, helping create messaging that reflected the purpose of the series and to promote the values behind it. The event also included a premier of “Love Has Two Meanings,” a documentary short about Chinese elders’ experiences and perspectives on community safety. Learn more about the series, and the documentary short, in this piece for AsAmNews.