Black Futures Lab (BFL) is a voter mobilization and advocacy group targeting African-American voters run by Black Lives Matter leader Alicia Garza. BFL is a project of the San Francisco Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), a left-of-center to radical-left advocate for low-income Asian Americans. Black to the Future Action Fund is BFL’s political advocacy sister-group.

Leadership

BFL is run by Alicia Garza, a life-long radical-left activist who describes herself as a “trained Marxist.” ¹ While attending the University of California San Diego, Garza helped organize the first Women of Color Conference across the University of California system. ² After graduating, Garza worked as executive director of the left-of-center advocacy group People Organized to Win Employment Rights for almost nine years. ³

In 2013, Garza co-founded the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, an umbrella organization for leading Black Lives Matter groups originally sponsored by Thousand Currents (replaced in 2020 by the Tides Foundation). That same year, Garza became an executive at the National Domestic Workers Alliance. While maintaining this position, Garza also became the principal officer of BFL and the Black to the Future Action Fund in 2018. ³

Black Imagination Incubator

Black Futures Lab organizes much of its activity under the Black Imagination Incubator program, which conducts research on the effects of public policy on African Americans. ⁴

Black Census Project

Shortly after its founding, BFL launched the Black Census Project, a project which claims to be the largest opinion survey of African Americans ever conducted. ⁵

The 2019 survey questioned almost 30,000 people, largely using tools through technology company Socioanalytica. The survey sample’s reported gender demographic make-up is radically different from that of the American and African-American population more generally, indicating the possibility of sampling bias. Of the participants in the Black Census Project, 1.5% identified as transgender,⁶ compared to 0.42% of people in the U.S. population⁷ and 0.8% of the African-American population in other studies. ⁸ An additional 4% of respondents identified as gender non-binary, while only 33% of respondents identified as cisgender men. ⁶

The Project found that the African Americans surveyed overwhelmingly support left-wing policy initiatives, including a $15 minimum wage, government-subsidized low-income housing, government-funded healthcare, a guaranteed jobs program, and reparations for slavery paid by the federal government to African Americans. ⁶

BFL partnered with several left-of-center organizations to complete the Black Census Project, including:⁶

• PushBlack
• Chinese Progressive Association
• Tides Center
• Tides Advocacy
• NoVo Foundation
• Women Donors Network
• Carnegie Corporation
• Open Society Foundations
• NextGen America
• Ford Foundation
• NEO Philanthropy
• Workers Lab

Black to the Future Public Policy Institute

The Black to the Future Public Policy Institute is a joint project of BFL and the Black to the Future Action Fund. The Institute creates and advocates for policy recommendations based on the results of the Black Census Project. As of late 2020, few proposals were listed, with the Institute focusing on combatting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on African Americans. ⁹

Shirley Chisholm “Unbought and Unbossed” Black Politics Project

The Shirley Chisholm “Unbought and Unbossed” Black Politics Project is BFL’s political training program. Named after Shirley Chisholm, a former Democratic U.S. Representative from New York and the first African-American woman to run for president,⁴ the program has four divisions which train African-American voter coalitions, campaign managers, candidates, and campaign fundraisers to support left-of-center causes. ⁴

Partner Organizations

Black Futures Lab lists three left-of-center organizations as its partners. Color of Change is an advocacy group founded to publicize former President George W. Bush’s alleged neglect of African-American communities after Hurricane Katrina. Demos is a left-wing public policy advocacy group associated with the Democratic Party and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The Tides Foundation is a major pass-through fund for left-of-center donors. ¹⁰

1. Steinbuch, Yaron. “Black Lives Matter co-founder describes herself as ‘trained Marxist.’” New York Post. June 25, 2020. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herself-as-trained-marxist/.
2. Darden, Jenee. “What it Means to Rise.” Triton. April 24, 2019. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://tritonmag.com/what-it-means-to-rise/.
3. “Alicia Garza.” LinkedIn. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/buildthemovement/.
4. “our work.” Black Futures Lab. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://blackfutureslab.org/our-work/.
5. “Black Census Project Results.” Black Census. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://blackcensus.org/.
6. “Beyond Kings and Queen: Gender and Politics in the 2019 Black Census.” Black Futures Lab. 2019. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://blackcensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Beyond-Kings-and-Queens-Gender-and-Politics.pdf.
7. “How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States.” UCLA School of Law Williams Institute. 2016. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/.
8. “Race and Ethnicity of Adults Who Identify as Transgender in the United States.” UCLA School of Law Williams Institute. 2016. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/race-ethnicity-trans-adults-us/.
9. “Black to the Future Public Policy Institute.” Black Futures Lab. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://blackfutureslab.org/black-to-the-future-policy-institute-2/.
10. “Partners.” Black Futures Lab. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://blackfutureslab.org/about/.