Black Lady News

— A WEEKLY NOTE FROM LEAH DAUGHTRY —

Black

Lady

News

What matters this week.
For the women who move the world.

Issue No. 016

Friday, August 14, 2026

A NOTE FROM LEAH

As this issue publishes I am fulfilling my duty as an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, at the DNC's summer meeting taking place this weekend in Austin, Texas.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee, of which I am a member, will present its formal report to the full DNC, recommending the Rules for delegate selection and also the Calls to the Convention. Probably most important among the items that will be presented is the Rules Committee recommendation on the 2028 presidential primary calendar and the lineup of early states. As we previously published, the lineup starts with South Carolina and ends with Virginia, and it adds two new states to the early window: New Mexico and Virginia.

The DNC's final vote will take place on Saturday at the morning plenary. Watch the news for the outcome of the meeting.

THE HEADLINE

TPS Ended for 350,000 Haitians. The Job Losses Landed on Black Women Twice.

Credit: Baysource9

Haiti's Temporary Protected Status ended August 5, 2026. Then-Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination in November 2025, effective that February. A federal judge blocked it one day before it took effect, finding the move likely driven by racial animus. The Supreme Court disagreed in June, ruling 6-3 in Mullin v. Doe that courts generally can't review these decisions, and cleared the way. On August 5, District Judge Ana Reyes confirmed her stay was no longer in effect. Current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin put it plainly to reporters: self-deport, or "we'll arrest you and send you back."

The number is not evenly distributed. Roughly a third of Haitian TPS holders work in health care. TPS holders overall make up 15 percent of the country's noncitizen health care workforce, despite being just 2.1 percent of the immigrant population. An analysis by FWD.us, UndocuBlack Network, and Haitian Bridge Alliance counted 13,000 working as nursing assistants, caring for an estimated 65,000 patients a day, and 8,000 working as caregivers for roughly 12,000 children and aging family members. Haitian TPS holders contribute an estimated $5.9 billion to the U.S. economy and pay $1.6 billion in taxes a year.

Haitian immigrants are overwhelmingly Black. UndocuBlack Network's Patrice Lawrence named the pattern directly: the rollback reflects long-standing anti-Black disparities in immigration policy, not incidental fallout. And the workforce absorbing the loss is disproportionately Black on the other side too. Home health aides nationally are 87.2 percent women, and Black workers make up 29.8 percent of that workforce, more than double their 12.8 percent share of the overall labor force. Same industry. Same underpaid jobs. Different visa status.

It is already showing up on the ground. Westminster Communities of Florida terminated 12 Haitian TPS holders working as certified nursing assistants, dining staff, and housekeepers in its care facilities before the ruling even came down. SEIU 1199's Balthazar Fortune, who has placed TPS holders at Maimonides Medical Center, said he could not reach workers who called after their status ended. New York Attorney General Letitia James put the stakes bluntly: stripping legal status "will just tear families apart, devastate our healthcare workforce."

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR US

This is not only an immigration story. It is a Black women's labor story with an immigration hook. Haitian immigrant women are losing the right to work here. Black American women, already carrying a disproportionate share of the country's caregiving labor, absorb what happens next: the short staffing, the stretched shifts, the patients who lose the aide they have had for years. Black elders relying on Medicaid-funded home care feel the gap from the other end. Two populations. One industry. One week. UndocuBlack Network and Haitian Bridge Alliance are the organizations tracking this closest, if you're looking for where to put attention or support.

THE PROFILE

Errin Haines Brings NABJ Home.

Credit: Courtesy of Errin Haines for NABJ President

Errin Haines, president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), is presiding over the organization's 50th anniversary convention this week, August 12-16, and it is happening in Atlanta, the city that made her. Haines grew up there, got her start as a local reporter, and worked her way through The Washington Post, The Associated Press, and now The 19th, where she is editor-at-large. NABJ hasn't brought its convention back to Atlanta since 2005.

"To be here now, leading this organization of 4,000 strong, and welcoming them to the place that raised me, that shaped me, that really made me the person and the journalist that I am, it is just such a tremendous honor," Haines said.

She took over NABJ's presidency at a moment the organization needed steadying. Newsrooms are shedding jobs, AI is reshaping the profession, and press freedom is under sustained pressure. Haines has spent the year working both beats at once: covering the political story and living the industry story. She's also an MSNBC political contributor, host of The Amendment podcast, and a co-host of the new docuseries Long Play, which spends time in six Southern states to trace the region's role in American politics.

"The excellence, the swagger, the courage and the revolutionary spirit we have here," Haines said of Atlanta. "I want people to take that back with them to wherever they are."

THE FIVE

Five things to know this week.

1- Tuesday was National Poll Worker Recruitment Day.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission's annual push to recruit the people who staff polling places. Without them, sites close, language assistance disappears, and voters with disabilities get turned away. No experience required. Your local elections office trains you, and most states pay you for your time. The recruitment window doesn't close with the day. Sign up now at powerthepolls.org ahead of November 3.

EAC · Power the Polls

2- Black women's unemployment rate fell. Their employment did not rise.

Friday's BLS jobs report put Black women's unemployment rate at 5.4% in July, down from 5.7% in June and 6.4% a year ago. Read alone, that looks like progress. But their labor force participation rate dropped over the same year, from 61.2% to 60.6%, and the share of Black women who actually have a job right now, whether or not they're counted as looking for one, sat at 57.3%, exactly where it was a year ago. The rate improved because fewer Black women are being counted in the labor force at all, not because more of them found work. Black men's unemployment moved the other way this month, rising to 6.2% from 5.8% in June. The overall Black unemployment rate, 6.3%, remains nearly double the white rate of 3.6%.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation, July 2026

3- Black communities give more. They just get counted less.

August is Black Philanthropy Month, founded in 2011 by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland, rooted in the Pan-African Women's Philanthropy Network. The Kellogg Foundation found African Americans give a larger share of their income to charity than any other racial group, a fact that cuts against the usual framing of Black communities as recipients of philanthropy rather than its engine. The tradition runs from Madam C.J. Walker, who funneled her wealth back into Black communities, through mutual aid societies, Black churches, and HBCUs. ABFE is running a Black Women In Philanthropy spotlight series this month. Give 8/28, a national day of giving to Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits, lands August 28.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation, "Cultures of Giving" · ABFE · BackBlack Movement

4- Women accounted for all of July's labor force decline nationally.

The economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Women lost 32,000 of them, while men gained 9,000, according to a National Women's Law Center analysis of the BLS jobs report. Beyond job losses, 165,000 women left the labor force entirely last month, neither working nor looking for work, while men's participation held steady. Since January, 845,000 women have left the labor force altogether, more than double the 406,000 men who have. NWLC's Jasmine Tucker called it a sign of an economy "failing so many women." It's the wider trend the Black women's employment numbers above sit inside: not an isolated dip, but part of a larger exit already underway.

National Women's Law Center, analysis of BLS Employment Situation, July 2026

5- Black Women for Wellness gathers in LA this week for reproductive justice.

The organization's 27th Annual Reproductive Justice Conference, "From Harm to Healing: Dismantling Barriers to Reproductive Justice for Black Women and Girls," runs Thursday in Los Angeles. It lands the same week the National Black Caucus of State Legislators reaffirmed its own resolution on the issue, warning that the deterioration of reproductive rights adversely impacts people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who already face disparities in access to health care services and insurance coverage, and are more likely to face discrimination from health care providers. The two aren't coordinated, but they're pointed at the same target: policy that treats Black women's healthcare access as an afterthought.

Black Women for Wellness · National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Resolution HHS-26-15

THE WIN

Kayla McBride Just Rewrote the WNBA Record Book.

Credit: Minnesota Lynx - WNBA

Minnesota Lynx guard Kayla McBride made 10 three-pointers on Sunday, a new WNBA single-game record, breaking the old mark of nine. She finished with a career-high 43 points, on 10-of-14 shooting from deep, in a 103-90 win over the Dallas Wings that made Minnesota the first team to clinch a 2026 playoff spot. She's 34, in her 13th season, a five-time All-Star, and she chose to come back to Minnesota this past offseason when she had other options.

"I'm exactly where I want to be," McBride said afterward. "Coming back here in the offseason was the best decision I've ever made. I'm so grateful to the city of Minneapolis for just loving me the way they do."

The Watch

Congressional Black Caucus Women

Twenty-eight Black women presently serve in Congress. All Democrats. 24 voting House members, two non-voting delegates, and two senators. All are finishing out their current terms regardless of primary outcomes below, but the 2026 midterms are already reshaping what that number looks like in January.

Two CBC women still have primaries ahead. Frederica Wilson (FL-24) and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the former FL-20 member who resigned in April ahead of a House Ethics Committee hearing and now faces federal indictment on charges of laundering $5 million in FEMA funds, both go to voters August 18. Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) follows September 1.

The number itself is moving, not holding steady. Two sitting CBC women reached for higher office this cycle and split on the outcome: Robin Kelly lost her Illinois Senate primary in March, and Jasmine Crockett lost her Texas Senate primary the same month. Stacey Plaskett gave up her House delegate seat to run for USVI governor and won her primary outright, putting her within reach of becoming the territory's first woman governor.

Their old seats split too. Kelly's Illinois seat goes to Donna Miller, who is favored in November and would keep it in Black women's hands. Crockett's Dallas seat goes to Rev. Dr. Frederick Haynes III, a man, in a safe blue district, a net loss regardless of what happens in the fall.

Where the number could grow: Melat Kiros unseated longtime Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette in June and would be the state's first Black woman in Congress if she wins in November. And if Juliana Stratton wins the Illinois Senate seat she's now favored for, she becomes the sixth Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, serving simultaneously alongside Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester.

ONE THING TO READ

Searching for Jane Crow, by Talitha L. LeFlouria

Cover courtesy of Beacon Press

Out Aug. 11, from Beacon Press. LeFlouria, a leading historian of Black women and mass incarceration, traces the throughline from post-emancipation "Jane Crow" convict labor to today's carceral state, using archival research to put Black women at the center of a story usually told without them. Publishers Weekly called it "a damning look at the racialized nature of the US prison system." Read more →

Stay rooted.

— LD

Black Lady News is a weekly curation by Leah Daughtry.
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