Backlash against DEI halts gains for Black Minnesotans post-Floyd

For all the fear that defined the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristel Porter had never been less afraid.

Government support, from eviction and foreclosure moratoriums to unemployment and stimulus checks, meant there was a safety net where there hadn’t been before. For the first time, Porter, executive director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition in north Minneapolis, wasn’t worried about losing her house.

“There was no fear of being evicted. There was no fear of losing your home. There was no fear of losing your job, because you probably already lost it or you just were on unemployment,” she said.

Then a police officer murdered George Floyd on a Minneapolis street corner, and the world changed yet again. As the outcry spread across the globe, companies pledged to hire more Black workers and created positions focused on diversity. Money flooded Black-run businesses and organizations as corporations, governments and individuals pledged support and to re-examine internal hiring and funding policies for possible inequities. More Black people were able to start businesses, buy homes and make other investments in their own well-being since the pandemic and Floyd’s murder.

“I do think that these last couple years have been the best that I’ve ever seen for Black people in America, economically,” Porter said. “And one thing that we kept saying in our community is, ‘This isn’t going to last forever. This is going to dry up.’”

Five years after Floyd’s death, a national backlash has slammed the brakes on investments aimed at improving deep-seated socioeconomic disparities. Upon taking office, President Donald Trump issued executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the public and private sectors. And companies in Minnesota and across the country have responded by stepping back their public-facing efforts.

Black community leaders say the backlash hasn’t come as a surprise. Many were already skeptical the promises that followed Floyd’s murder would result in meaningful change.

“Long-term response requires more knowing, more commitment, more patience, deeper relationships with the issues, and I did not necessarily see the commitment to systems change,” said Chanda Smith Baker, founder of the consulting firm Smith Baker. “I think that the history of the country has created a lot of behaviors that are difficult to disrupt.”

Though there have been measurable improvements in Black Minnesotans’ socioeconomic status since 2020, there wasn’t much time for change to take hold before the pushback began.

“I think this is one of the most frustrating things about shutting down the DEI programs, is we’re not even clear what impact it had,” said Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

U.S. census data shows that between 2019 and 2023, median earnings for Black women working full time rose about 5%, after adjusting for inflation. The same metric for Black men increased 14% during that time. After jumping to 10% during the pandemic recession, Black Minnesotans’ unemployment rate fell to 3% in 2024 — in line with the state as a whole — though it has begun to rise again, reaching 6% this year.

Some of these trends were underway before 2020. Research from Opportunity Insights at Harvard University shows Black children born in the U.S. between 1978 and 1992 experienced greater upward mobility than most white children, with earnings rising across all income levels. That shift reduced the white-Black earnings gap for children from low-income families by 30%. Racial gaps in educational attainment, standardized test scores and mortality rates also narrowed.

In Minnesota, the incomes of Black workers realized the fastest growth of any race or ethnicity between 2014 and 2019, rising 32% above the rate of inflation, data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve shows. Still, that leap didn’t close the state’s longstanding racial income gap: In 2019, Black workers at the state’s median income level earned less than $26,000 a year, compared with more than $42,000 for white workers.

After Floyd’s murder, Minnesota companies launched scholarships and training programs aimed at Black workers, with the goal of reducing these disparities. The state stepped in, too, funneling tens of millions of dollars toward new and existing economic investments including job training programs for underserved workers and loans for businesses affected by racial discrimination.

There was greater willingness to make these kinds of state-level investments after Floyd’s murder, said Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, who became the chamber’s first Black president in 2023 after voters elected the most diverse state Legislature in history.

“When you think in terms of the promise that I felt, even after the tragedy of the life of George Floyd being taken, I had a sense of hope that our country was going to stand up and meet the moment,” Champion said.

In just a few years, the political landscape has shifted. A power-sharing agreement in the House and a razor-thin DFL majority in the Senate has limited what legislators could accomplish this year, and pressure is building on states to fall in line with White House priorities.

Though Champion said he’s “deeply disturbed and saddened” by what he’s now seeing at the federal level, he hasn’t given up.

“I am certainly hopeful,” he said, “not because of the [presidential] administration, but because of the resilient spirit of Minnesotans and our country.”

Minneapolis-based think tank the African American Leadership Forum advocated for a range of economic policies at the Capitol this year, including state support for an initiative to close the racial wealth gap through investments in homeownership, entrepreneurship and commercial development.

African American Leadership Forum CEO Adair Mosley said he believes lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are open to this kind of investment as the state stares down rising economic uncertainty stemming from an aging workforce.

“The fastest growth population in our state are people of color,” Mosley said. “And so if we’re not talking about how to move more people of color up the social and economic mobility ladder, then we are not going to be able to do the things that have long made this state great.”

At the same time, Black leaders are bracing for more uncertainty — including a potential economic downturn — and putting supports in place to weather the storm.

“We’ve always known that no one is coming to save us,” Mosley said, “and that it is going to be up to us.”

Dee DePass of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.