FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ essay from the 2021 State of Black America advocates for broadband access as a civil right. Starks recognizes that the digital divide disproportionally affects Black Americans, thereby limiting economic opportunity and excluding them from pandemic-driven necessities like remote learning and telehealth.

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This essay focuses on the potential of Fintech companies to help mitigate the racial wealth and income gaps exacerbated by the pandemic. The authors specify the role the Fintech industry can play in filling the digital literacy and digital access gaps Black Americans face.

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This blog post by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies argues that a long-term solution to lack of broadband and device access among Black Americans is needed.

This resource reports that Black communities in the Rural South lack affordable, high-speed, quality broadband, and argues that expanding broadband could help reduce the deep racial and economic inequalities in education, jobs, and healthcare in the region, with policy recommendations.

This resource argues that efforts to close the digital divide in the Black rural South have been lacking, providing support showing that high-speed internet and broadband service are often not available or affordable in these areas, and that access to these services would demonstrably improve quality of life. It recommends the establishment of a permanent and meaningful broadband benefit program and a taskforce to prevent digital redlining, among other policies.