Where Barack Stands

Education

More than 50 years after the landmark Brown v. Board decision, millions of African American children still attend schools that are segregated by race and economic opportunity. As president, Barack Obama will work to create more opportunities for African American students by increasing Head Start preschool funding, supporting innovation and successful teaching in high-minority classrooms, reforming and funding No Child Left Behind, ensuring our schools remain diverse, and making college more affordable.

Health Care

More than 7 million African Americans lack health insurance and those who have access often receive lower quality care. Obama is committed to signing legislation by the end of his first term to ensure that all Americans have affordable, quality and portable health care coverage. Barack Obama will also continue his efforts to end health disparities through expanded research and outreach.

Poverty

One-quarter of African Americans live in poverty. Barack Obama will fight to eliminate poverty by increasing the minimum wage, investing in programs that help low-income Americans enter and climb the job ladder, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and establishing “Promise Neighborhoods” to tackle urban poverty.

Criminal Justice

Throughout his career as a community organizer, civil rights lawyer and elected advocate, Obama has worked to reform the criminal justice system. In the Illinois State Senate, Obama brought Democrats and Republicans together to reform the state’s broken death penalty system by requiring taped confessions in death penalty cases. In the U.S. Senate, Obama worked to provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders. Obama has also been a strong, consistent advocate of ending racial profiling.

Right to Vote

More than 40 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), there are still numerous obstacles to ensuring that every citizen can vote. As a community organizer, Obama successfully registered 150,000 new black voters. Obama also worked with his fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus to reauthorize the VRA and introduced other legislation to protect voters from misleading information and pressure states to improve voting procedures.