Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on the frontlines in the fight to close the racial wealth gap in America, and he hopes his actions in his state will serve as a model across the country.
“Let’s be clear: The racial wealth gap has cost this country $16 trillion in GDP over the past two decades,” said Moore, who, on Juneteenth, unveiled the latest actions he’s taking to close the racial wealth gap in Maryland.
“Racism is expensive. Bigotry is expensive,” America’s only Black governor told theGrio. “And the reason that we are moving to be able to address the racial wealth gap by focusing on both assets and access is because it’s actually going to help our economy.”
On Thursday, Moore announced nearly 7,000 additional state pardons for simple marijuana possession and the first batch of designated “Just Communities” to receive priority funding opportunities for housing and community development–many of which are historically Black and experienced decades of disinvestment as a result of racially discriminatory practices like redlining and urban highway construction.
Gov. Moore emphasized that repairing the harm to Black communities caused by these practices and ending existing ones like “unfair” housing appraisals is critical to building Black wealth. “[It’s] one of the greatest wealth thefts that we have seen in our nation’s history,” he declared.
Moore continued, “You can have more people becoming homeowners, you can have more home value being increased, you can have more entrepreneurs and Black entrepreneurs who are part of a larger landscape–that is going to grow the entire economy.”
The governor said anyone serious about addressing the “well-documented historic ills” against Black Americans has a “moral obligation to be able to address it and help to fix it.”
Economic and social barriers continue to plague Black communities, and there is growing concern about their ability to sustain amid fears of a recession caused by President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, as well as rollbacks of civil rights protections, DEI, and proposed major cuts to needed social programs.
“This is a challenging time for Black America,” said Moore. “We are watching basic protections that we have, that we believe in, and basic rights that we fought hard for, that are being pushed back and questioned…and weaponized.”
Despite these worries, the governor told theGrio, “The state of Black America is resilient.”
“Tell me when it has not been challenging, tell me when it’s been easy,” Moore said of the history of African-American struggle dating back to their enslavement in the United States through the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.
“The reason that we are still here, the reason we still have the freedoms that we have and the rights that are protected in the way that they are is because there are people who fought on our behalf,” Moore reminded.
The rising star of the Democratic Party said the community has an “assignment” to “continue to fight with the same fervor as those who came before us fought for us.”
He added, “If we do that and if we remember that the state of Black America is resilient, then I think we’re doing our work to make sure that we have a better and a brighter day tomorrow.”
