On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Four years after Dobbs, 41 states have banned abortion at some point during pregnancy. Clinics have closed. Care has become more expensive and difficult to reach. For Black women, who already faced unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality and economic inequities, the consequences have been especially severe. The intensely personal choice about whether and when to have children is a decision that many Black women are no longer able or trusted to make.
Six days after Roe fell, Ketanji Brown Jackson took her seat as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. The daughter of two school teachers, Justice Jackson excelled as a student and became a champion debater in high school. She graduated from Harvard and earned a law degree. She served as a public defender and rose through the federal judiciary before breaking a barrier that had stood since the nation’s founding.
Those two moments, separated by less than a week, capture the profound setbacks and extraordinary achievements that are part of the Black experience in our country.
Together, they underscore a reality I have witnessed throughout my own life and career as a Black woman in America. We possess the talent, vision, and determination to lead. Yet the policies that shape our lives often do not reflect our aspirations, ideas, or realities. In many respects, we are still relegated to second-class citizenship.
For nearly 40 years, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research has fought for full participation of women in society and the dismantling of economic and social inequities that have prevented America from achieving that goal. Central to our mission is the principle that Black women must lead the fight for the change we seek.
That conviction led us to launch the Advancing Black Women in Leadership initiative last year, representing a bold effort to address the systemic barriers Black women face in their leadership journeys while filling a critical research gap on the unique challenges they encounter.
Over the past year, IWPR’s own research has reinforced the urgency of this mission. In February 2026, IWPR reported that Black women lost more than 251,000 jobs between January and August 2025. Our analysis found that Black women were overrepresented in sectors hit hardest by Trump administration cuts and they experienced disproportionately higher job losses across occupations. Even excluding government jobs, Black women lost jobs at three times the rate of all women in professional and service occupations in 2025.
It’s no wonder that Black women are severely underrepresented in leadership positions throughout American society, from the halls of Congress to state houses to boardrooms.
Behind every one of these statistics is a story of a Black woman whose opportunities have been limited, or even blocked, through no fault of her own. Yet despite these obstacles, Black women continue to make progress, breaking barriers and advancing in spaces where they have long been underrepresented.
I know these stories because they are part of my own. Growing up in Richmond, Virginia—the capital of the Confederacy—several of my family members relied on public assistance programs even while working just to make ends meet. My mother spent 35 years in federal service while raising three daughters, largely on her own, due to the death of my father from prostate cancer in his early forties. I was 12 years old at that time. I would go on to experience firsthand the struggle of paying for college on little income while raising a young child.
These experiences shaped how I understand economic policy and the power of real leadership. They also illustrate the structural and systemic barriers that still hold Black women back—particularly today, as the Trump administration continues its assault on DEI, the economy, science, and public health. Eliminating those barriers will require a national policy agenda centered on strengthening worker protections, promoting equitable workplaces, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, and addressing systemic racial and gender wage gaps.
That agenda is only possible if WE lead the fight.
That is why, for the next phase of our initiative, IWPR will be rolling out a blog series highlighting the expertise of Black women in the policy and research arenas. The series will feature leaders like Valerie Wilson from the Economic Policy Institute, who will share more about Black women’s job losses last year and current labor market trajectories. We’ll also hear from experts like Jessica Fulton, who will bring her knowledge of tax systems to help illuminate the challenges in pursuing costly higher education for Black women in America. We look forward to learning from and working with these leaders to advance our cause.
Four years after that extraordinary week in 2022, Dobbs remains the law of the land, and Justice Jackson remains on the Supreme Court. One reminds us of the barriers that still impede our progress. The other inspires what’s possible when opportunity and talent meet. This is what our Advancing Black Women in Leadership initiative is all about. When Black women’s voices help us understand the past and shape the present, the future will be full of opportunity.
