We know what we want. Do they?
- A WEEKLY NOTE FROM LEAH DAUGHTRY -
Black
Lady
News
What matters this week.
For the women who move the world.
Issue No. 023
Friday, October 2, 2026
A NOTE FROM LEAH
The word of the week: Delivery.
Black women have never been confused about what we want. The Highland Project asked 700 of us, and the answer was the stuff of an ordinary good life: our health, enough money, people who love us, work that matters. The hard part has never been the wanting. It’s whether anybody with power intends to deliver.
Too much of this week’s news was about the opposite. The Justice Department moved to walk away from more than 50 school desegregation cases. Governors are being asked to sign up for a voucher program with a history we know too well. And at the Pentagon, women and Black officers in line for promotion keep coming off the lists.
But that’s never the whole story. Ashley Allison didn’t wait for someone to protect the places where we tell the truth. She bought one. Timnit Gebru didn’t wait for Big Tech to fix itself. She built her own institute, and this week the world noticed. And our Legend, Rev. Willie T. Barrow, spent a lifetime as the organizer behind the movement, the woman who made sure everybody showed up.
That’s the throughline. When the systems won’t deliver, Black women build. We organize the meeting, raise the money, and, as Rev. Barrow put it, pick presidents. We also take care of ourselves, which is why I’m grateful to Judge Star Jones for this week’s Five. Love can begin with a click. Use your head anyway.
So here’s my ask. 77% of the Black women Highland surveyed are very motivated to vote. Somebody is betting they can talk us out of it, one cynical meme at a time. Don’t let them. Check your registration, make your plan, and bring a sister with you.
We know what we want. Let’s go get it.
THE HEADLINE
We know what we want. The country isn’t delivering it.
Every election season somebody asks what Black women want, as if it were a mystery. The Highland Project asked 700 Black women voters directly in its sixth annual national poll, and the answer is not complicated: time to care for our mental health, enough money, loving relationships, and work that means something.
The problem is delivery. Highland measured how much each need matters against how well leaders and institutions are meeting it. It calls the distance between the two the fulfillment gap, and the gap is widest on the things Black women care about most.
So it’s no surprise that 92% are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. The surprise is what they’re doing about it. 77% are very motivated to vote in the midterms, and 87% say changes to voting rights protections make them more motivated, not less.
That motivation is exactly what’s being targeted. The New York Times reports Black voters are facing AI fakes and what Onyx Impact calls “cynicism bombing,” built to convince us that voting is pointless. This poll is the rebuttal. Black women are skeptical, and showing up anyway.
Black women have never been confused about what we want. The question for November, and for everyone asking for our votes, is whether they plan to close the gap or just keep measuring it.
Read the full poll for the rest of the findings.
The Highland Project, “The Fulfillment Gap” (brilliant corners Research & Strategies; 700 Black women registered voters, live phone, Aug. 30-Sept. 10, 2026; margin of error ±3.7 points); New York Times
THE PROFILE
She bought a newsroom. In this election, that’s organizing.
Photo: Harvard University’s Institute of Politics
One year ago today, Ashley Allison announced that her company, Watering Hole Media, had bought The Root. It was the last site left in G/O Media’s portfolio, the outlet Henry Louis Gates Jr. co-founded in 2008. Gates praised her for “returning The Root to its roots.”
Allison didn’t come up through newsrooms. She started as a special education teacher in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She served in the Obama White House, ran national coalitions for the Biden-Harris 2020 campaign, held a fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, and became a CNN commentator. She’s an Ohio State graduate with a master’s in education and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
She founded Watering Hole Media in 2024 for a specific reason. As more people got their news from social feeds, she watched misinformation get aimed at Black and Brown communities, and she wanted to build a trusted alternative. Her plan for The Root is video, partnerships with experts, and in-person events. “This isn’t about making more content,” she said, “but rather about making meaning of this moment.”
Read that next to this week’s Headline. Black voters are being hit with fakes built to convince them voting is pointless, and Black political leaders are asking whether the party is investing in Black voters at all. The answer to disinformation isn’t only a fact-check. It’s ownership: outlets Black audiences trust, owned by people who answer to them.
One precision note. Much of last year’s coverage said The Root “returned” to Black ownership. Its former editor, Danielle Belton, has said it was never Black-owned; Gates was a minority owner at launch. What isn’t in dispute: today, The Root belongs to a Black woman.
Everybody wants Black voters in November. Ashley Allison bought one of the places where we decide what’s true.
CNN; NPR; The Root; Journal-isms
THE FIVE
Guest curated by Star Jones
Attorney, Advocate, and Host/Judge, Divorce Court
Star Jones found the love of her life with a click. This week, Judge Star is handing down the rules for doing it safely.
Photo courtesy of Star Jones
Judge Star’s 5 Rules for Safe Online Dating
I met my now husband online, so I absolutely believe love can begin with a click. But before you open your heart, use your head. Online dating can be wonderful, but it requires common sense, clear boundaries, and a commitment to protecting yourself.
01 Verify before you romanticize.
A beautiful profile is not proof of a beautiful person. Video chat before meeting, search their name and do a reverse-image search of their photographs. Pay attention when stories change or someone always has an excuse for why they cannot meet. Black women deserve relationships built on truth, not charm without confirmation. Chemistry may be exciting, but consistency is evidence. Take your time and follow the facts.
FBI
02 Keep your private life private.
Do not immediately share your home address, workplace, daily routine, passwords, or financial information. Be careful about connecting on social media because photographs, landmarks, and check-ins may reveal more than you intended. Keep early conversations on the dating platform, where reporting and blocking tools are available. Protecting your personal information protects your safety, your family, and the life you worked hard to build.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
03 Never finance the fantasy.
Do not send money, buy gift cards, transfer cryptocurrency, accept mysterious deposits, or share your banking information with an online love interest. Scammers build trust before introducing an emergency, investment opportunity, or heartbreaking request. Romance and financial urgency should never arrive together. Black women work too hard for our money to let affection override good judgment. If your new love needs your bank account, Judge Star finds that suspicious.
Federal Trade Commission
04 Meet publicly and control your exit.
Meet for the first time in a busy public place. Tell someone who you are meeting, where you will be, and when you expect to return. Arrange your own transportation, keep your phone charged, and never allow a new date to pressure you into changing locations. Black women are often expected to be polite even when uncomfortable. Forget that. Your safety matters more than someone else’s feelings.
Bumble Safety Center
05 Trust your instincts and preserve the evidence.
“No” is a complete sentence, and consent can be withdrawn at any time. If someone threatens, harasses, stalks, or frightens you, save the texts, voicemails, and screenshots before blocking and reporting them. Include names, dates, times, and account information. Evidence can disappear quickly online. Protecting the record protects your options if you later need the platform, an attorney, or law enforcement to act.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
JUDGE STAR’S RULING
I found the love of my life online, so I know the possibilities are real. Let hope open the door, but let good judgment decide who gets to walk through it.
Guest curators write in their own voice. Their picks and views are their own.
THE LEGENDS
Rev. Willie T. Barrow
The Organizer Behind the Movement
By The Colored Girls (Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, Tina Flournoy, and Minyon Moore)
Credit: Unknown (younger); Dot Ward (later years)
Rev. Willie T. Barrow is precisely the kind of woman more people should know. Known affectionately as “The Little Warrior,” she spent decades organizing for civil and human rights, her work intersecting with some of the most important movements and leaders of twentieth-century Black America — particularly through her long leadership within Operation PUSH and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Her story corrects a distorted picture of how movements actually happen. History photographs the person at the microphone. It does not always photograph the woman who organized the meeting, brought together the coalition, raised the money, mobilized the community, negotiated the disagreement and made certain everybody showed up. Visibility and influence are not the same thing. A woman does not have to be the most famous person in the room to be one of the reasons the room exists.
THE WIN
Timnit Gebru Wins the “Alternative Nobel” for Taking on Big AI
Photo: Right Livelihood
Dr. Timnit Gebru, the Ethiopian-born computer scientist and founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), was named on Wednesday, September 30, as one of four recipients of the 2026 Right Livelihood Award, often described as the “alternative Nobel Prize.”
The award recognizes Gebru for her work challenging the concentration of power in artificial intelligence and exposing the ways AI systems can reproduce discrimination and harm marginalized communities. The other honorees include a Pakistani human-rights lawyer and two women-led organizations in Georgia and Southern Africa. Gebru and her fellow laureates will be honored in Stockholm on December 1.
Right Livelihood; Associated Press
And a joy note. Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey welcomed a baby girl on Thursday, her second daughter. She is only the 15th member of Congress ever to give birth while serving, the first from New Jersey, and the second Black woman, following Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke in 1973. “Being a mom is one of the greatest joys of my life,” she said. Welcome to the world, little one.
Roll Call; New Jersey Globe; The 19th
THE WATCH
What we are watching next.
Brown is being taken apart from both ends. On Sept. 24, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced it had dismissed more than 50 school desegregation cases, from Waterbury, Connecticut, to Flagler County, Florida, with cases in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia on the list. Most were filed in the 1960s and ’70s against districts that ran two school systems by race. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called the court orders “onerous and outdated.” Read the fine print. A federal judge has to approve each dismissal, and DOJ told CBS that in some cases judges haven’t ruled yet. “Ended” is DOJ’s word. “Moved to end” is the accurate one. The department says it will seek dismissal of every remaining case once it concludes a district has shed its segregated past. As of 2022, it was still a party in about 140 cases. Kristen Clarke, who once ran the Civil Rights Division and is now general counsel at the NAACP, warned the moves threaten to fuel resegregation.
Four days later, 16 civil rights groups, including LDF, the NAACP, and Advancement Project, warned the nation’s governors about a second threat: a new federal voucher program. Here’s how it works. Anyone who donates to a group that hands out private school scholarships gets it back as a credit on their federal taxes, up to $1,700. Families can only use those scholarships if their state’s governor signs up. Thirty states have, according to the IRS.
The civil rights groups’ warning is about history. After Brown, Southern states used vouchers to help white families leave integrating public schools for private, all-white ones. In Mississippi alone, 22 of those “segregation academies” opened, and many are still open today. The groups also warn that states that sign up can’t add rules of their own, so a governor likely couldn’t even require these scholarship groups to follow state anti-discrimination law.
The program starts Jan. 1, 2027. Watch the Democratic governors. Colorado’s Jared Polis signed up. New York’s Kathy Hochul says she intends to but hasn’t made it official. The courts are closing the old remedies while Congress funds the old workaround. Watch which judges sign off on the dismissals, and which governors sign up.
U.S. Department of Justice; CBS News; civil rights coalition letter to governors (via LDF); IRS; WSHU
Thirty-three groups to Hegseth: show your work. The NAACP and the National Women’s Law Center led a coalition, including the ACLU and National Action Network, in a Sept. 16 letter demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth comply with congressional requests for oversight of senior military promotions. The groups cite reporting that he has blocked at least 40 senior officers, about half of them women or people of color. In the first seven months of this year, women were 8 of 201 nominees for high-ranking posts, about 4%, the lowest share in at least 25 years, according to a New York Times analysis of Senate nomination records. The Pentagon disputes that race or sex drives the decisions. In Highland’s poll, more representation in positions of power was one of the top answers when Black women described what real progress would look like. Watch whether the Senate Armed Services Committee uses its confirmation calendar to demand the answers.
MS NOW; NAACP/National Women’s Law Center letter; New York Times
The Supreme Court is back Monday. The justices open their new term on Oct. 5, the first Monday in October. The first arguments cover climate liability and immigration detention, but two cases on this term’s docket land closer to home. RNC v. Mi Familia Vota asks whether federal law stops states from demanding documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy asks whether Colorado can apply its nondiscrimination rules to religious schools in its public preschool program. And watch the emergency docket: court watchers expect a wave of election cases around the midterms.
Supreme Court of the United States; SCOTUSblog; Center for American Progress
Mortgage rates just jumped. The average 30-year fixed rate hit 7.28% this week, up from 7.03% a week ago and 6.34% a year ago, according to Freddie Mac. That’s the highest since November 2023. In Highland’s poll, 58% of Black women voters say their wages are falling behind the cost of living. Every jump like this puts a home further out of reach. Freddie Mac’s next reading comes Thursday, Oct. 8.
Freddie Mac; Fox Business; The Highland Project
ONE THING TO READ
Democrats need Black voters. Are they investing like it?
Richard Fowler follows the money through three Southern Senate races. Angie Nixon won Florida’s primary raising under $1 million against more than $16 million. Kentucky’s Charles Booker, the state’s first Black Senate nominee, raised $1.1 million through June to his opponent’s nearly $10 million. The DSCC answers with scarcity: more races than money, especially given an expanded map. Read it for Jim Clyburn’s one-word answer on whether the party has underinvested in Black voters (“Absolutely”), and for Esosa Osa’s warning that Black voters can tell a party fighting for them from one managing them.
Stay rooted.
- LD
Black Lady News is a weekly curation by Leah Daughtry.
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