Congress created the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program in 2018 to assist with disaster relief. It helped restore and revitalize Black communities. Now it’s gone.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) terminated the BRIC program, bending the knee to the Trump Administration's executive order to cut "wasteful spending." Interestingly, this “waste” has been a godsend to underserved Black areas.
The end of BRIC reinforces a longstanding pattern: one where programs supporting Black well-being are cut, leaving already vulnerable populations even more exposed.
This cut mirrors past federal decisions like Reagan's 80% cut to public housing funds, which decimated urban Black neighborhoods, or Clinton's 1996 welfare reform that imposed harsher restrictions on assistance, disproportionately harming Black women and children. These one-off moves are just part of a larger, more insidious pattern.
Cloaked in bureaucracy but driven by persistent neglect, Black voices and needs are, once again, being drowned out. Reimagining government power means centering the will and knowledge of those most harmed. Ending BRIC is not just a policy choice—it's a deliberate act that deepens existing disparities and exposes Black Americans to greater harm.