01 Sep 2026 Black Americans Don’t Need Socialist Grocery Stores. We Need Ownership

Does socialism offer greater freedom—or simply a new form of dependence? Black conservatives with Project 21 argue that the answer to society’s ills lies not in more government ownership, but greater private ownership, entrepreneurship and economic independence.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposal for government-run grocery stores provides a timely example. Rather than teaching the next generation to depend on City Hall for the necessities of life, we should be creating the conditions for black Americans to own the businesses that provide them.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Tino Smith, Ph.D.: (excerpted from his Project 21 commentary)

Too often, black economic history is told beginning with what was done to black Americans rather than what we’ve built. Our economic history did not begin with government dependency, Jim Crow or redlining. Black Americans have created businesses, institutions, and economic ecosystems despite extraordinary barriers. This history matters when considering socialism and Mayor Mamdani’s city-owned grocery-store initiative.

Government officials should care when communities lack affordable, nutritious food. But recognizing a problem does not automatically mean government should become the grocer.

If a community needs a grocery store, I want black children growing up believing they can own that grocery store. I want neighborhood entrepreneurs to have access to the capital necessary to open it, employ local residents, perhaps own the property beneath it, and create wealth that can remain in the community and pass to another generation.

Black entrepreneurship is not something government recently created for us. Building businesses, churches, farms, schools, professional practices and communities has long been part of the black American story. Discriminatory policies restricted that opportunity and destroyed wealth, but those injustices should neither become the starting point of our history nor the limit of our imagination.

My concern about socialism is therefore not rooted in fear of government. It is rooted in confidence in people. The goal should not be greater government ownership of our communities. The goal should be greater ownership by the people who live in them. (more)

 

Project 21 Ambassador April Chapman: (excerpted from her Project 21 commentary)

Black Americans should be alarmed whenever politicians sell government dependence as the pathway to freedom. For generations, too many of our most influential leaders have conditioned us to distrust private enterprise while looking to government to provide—and increasingly control—the essentials of daily life: healthcare, education, childcare, housing, and now groceries.

Martin Luther King Jr. belongs in this criticism, not outside it. His own writings attacked capitalism and embraced socialist economic thinking. This ideological legacy has helped condition Black Americans to view government provision as liberation and private enterprise as exploitation…. Government dependence does not become freedom simply because a celebrated black leader advocated for it.

Today, the Congressional Black Caucus carries forward the same government-centered political vision…. When our leaders repeatedly portray capitalism as the enemy, they discourage us from pursuing the very tools that build generational wealth: entrepreneurship, investment, property ownership, and private enterprise. We are encouraged to measure progress by what politicians distribute instead of what families own, build, earn, and pass down. That is a prescription for political dependence, not economic independence.

Mayor Mamdani’s municipal grocery-store proposal illustrates this mentality. Taxpayer-funded stores do not make food free to produce, transport, or sell. Someone still pays. Who absorbs the losses if these stores fail? What happens to independent neighborhood grocers competing against a government that can subsidize its own operations with public money?

We should be teaching our children to own the grocery store—not training them to thank a politician for running it….

Our ancestors were denied ownership of their labor and the freedom to build wealth for their families. That history should make us fiercely resistant to economic subjugation. I regard socialism’s substitution of state control for individual economic agency as bondage by another name. The absence of physical chains does not make dependence synonymous with freedom.

Black America needs more ownership, more enterprise, and more economic freedom—not another generation taught to mistake government dependence for deliverance. (more)

 

Project 21 Ambassador Craig DeLuz: (adapted from his Sacramento Daily Press commentary)

The recent slew of primary wins for candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America is not a grassroots uprising of the working poor. It is a coordinated operation by educated, ideologically committed activists who found a weakened party offering little resistance. For Black Americans, the takeover carries particular weight: It’s the triumph of a narrative pushed to Black communities for nearly a century — that capitalism works for others but not for us, and only redistribution and socialism can bring prosperity.

Democratic socialism’s base is mostly educated professionals whose material interests align with government expansion: government workers, non-profit employees, activists whose careers depend on the problems they claim to solve, and young people without accumulated wealth. What unites them isn’t poverty but access to education, political networks, and employment insulated from market competition.

That matters for Blacks because the narrative is both powerful and misleading. Black communities have been taught that capitalism is inherently hostile to Black prosperity. Yet Black Wall Street in Tulsa demonstrated that Black entrepreneurs could build extraordinary wealth under segregation through property ownership and enterprise — dollars circulated within the community 19 times before leaving, creating a self-sustaining economy of remarkable prosperity. History shows Black people can prosper under capitalism. The prevailing narrative insists otherwise. Which claim needs more evidence: the one backed by actual Black millionaires who built actual wealth, or the one asserted by academics who’ve never built anything?

These groups have a direct material stake in government growth. More spending means more jobs for people with their credentials; a community organizer’s income depends on problems persisting, not resolving. They invoke the suffering of the poor while occupying secure, well-credentialed positions themselves — demanding sacrifice while ensuring it falls on someone else.

The socialist pitch confuses identifying a problem with solving it. But what we actually know: free-market capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in history, and countries with the highest living standards have market economies and rule of law. For Black Americans specifically: between 1940 and 1960, the share of Black families in poverty fell 40 percentage points; a pace never matched before or since, driven by education, migration to opportunity, and business and property ownership, not government programs.

Then came the Great Society. After the 1960s expansion of poverty programs, poverty fell more slowly and dependency rose. The fastest Black economic advancement came through markets and self-reliance; the era of greatest government intervention brought slower progress. Yet the prescription never changes: more government, more intervention.

Socialist policies tend to harm the poor most. Rent controls don’t create affordable housing — they shrink supply, and New York’s controls discourage building, leaving poor people competing for fewer apartments while the connected benefit. Government workers and activists benefit most from expansion — not the poor, and every regulation that bankrupts a small business is a win for larger firms that can afford compliance staff.

From Mamdani’s slate in New York to Rabb in Philadelphia to Kiros in Denver, the pattern repeats: educated progressives in upscale areas, insulated from economic consequences, unseating incumbents who represented working and lower-middle-class communities. That tells you who actually wants socialism: not those suffering poverty, but those secure enough to afford the ideology.

The mistake of democratic socialism is assuming the answer to real inequality is more power for government officials. History says otherwise: reducing poverty requires growth, competitive markets, stable property rights, and rule of law. These guarantee nothing, but they’re the only policies that reliably raise living standards.

Here’s the cruel irony: if activists, organizers, and government workers actually solved Black poverty, they’d work themselves out of jobs. So there exists, consciously or not, an incentive to maintain poverty as a permanent condition requiring permanent, credentialed solutions. The poor remain. The activists remain. The government remains, and grows. Meanwhile, Black Wall Street — proof that Black entrepreneurs built extraordinary wealth through capitalism — becomes a footnote instead of a blueprint. That is the pattern worth recognizing, and the part worth rejecting. (read more)

 

Project 21 Ambassador Will Archer:

Black Americans should view state-directed socialism and municipal grocery experiments not merely with profound skepticism, but with complete and categorical rejection.

Replacing private enterprise with bureaucratic paternalism systematically dismantles the primary engine of generational wealth and self-determination. Historically, true resilience was never gifted by the state; it was forged through commercial autonomy in hubs like Tulsa’s Greenwood District and Richmond’s Jackson Ward, whereas heavy-handed government planning repeatedly suffocated local micro-economies. A taxpayer-subsidized, city-run grocery network directly threatens this legacy by using unfair advantages to cannibalize independent, minority-owned bodegas and grocers operating on razor-thin margins, draining local capital and replacing self-reliant merchants with municipal dependency.

As C.S. Lewis warned in The Abolition of Man, “What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument”—a dynamic mirrored when state planners disguise administrative control as benevolence. Between 2026 and 2050, as the black population expands beyond 55 million and migrates toward decentralized, high-tech suburban corridors, genuine economic sovereignty will depend on securing equity in automated supply chains and private commercial logistics, not on surrendering daily bread to the state’s fragile ledgers.

Black Americans have nothing structural to gain—and generational sovereignty to lose—from expanded government control over their communities, institutions and commerce, as true economic power is never granted by bureaucratic decree but built through property ownership, productive enterprise and capital mastery. Substituting market competition with administrative oversight merely exchanges individual agency for political clientelism, resting on the flawed assumption that centralized planners understand a neighborhood’s needs better than the individuals living within it.

As Thomas Sowell observed, “The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best—whether individuals through personal choice or surrogate decision-makers through government mandate.” When municipalities and federal agencies expand their footprint through public housing monopolies, bureaucratic school systems and top-down zoning, they generate misaligned incentives where bureaucracies measure success by budget expansion rather than community self-sufficiency, while regulatory overreach penalizes local entrepreneurship. Sowell bluntly summarized this dynamic: “The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the people. It is about the power of the politicians.”

In contrast, the most resilient foundation for community advancement remains industrial competence and commercial leverage, a principle Booker T. Washington championed when noting that “No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.” Washington recognized that producing essential goods, services and infrastructure commands a market respect that no legislative body can revoke, declaring that “At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.”

State-directed policies attempt the exact opposite by prioritizing political redistribution and top-down subsidies over the development of private equity and skilled enterprise. Looking toward 2050, as the global economy pivots into artificial intelligence, decentralized energy systems and advanced automated logistics, expanding state control anchors communities to obsolete, high-friction bureaucratic models—relegating citizens to passive utility consumers, public housing tenants, and clients of municipal distribution rather than owners of distributed microgrids, private logistics hubs, specialized STEM institutes and commercial real estate syndicates.

As C.S. Lewis warned in The Abolition of Man, when technocratic planners mold society from above, “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases will be the power of some men to make other men what they please.” Black America does not need more supervisors, regulators or government overseers managing its future; lasting prosperity requires owning the balance sheets, generating the power, building the supply chains and controlling the physical and digital infrastructure of tomorrow.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Ayshia Connors:

Black Americans should be particularly skeptical of the idea that greater government control is synonymous with greater opportunity. Our history gives us plenty of reason to question systems that concentrate power in institutions and then ask us to trust that those institutions will act in our best interests.

What concerns me about the rise of socialism is that it shifts the conversation away from ownership, entrepreneurship and economic independence, and toward government as the solution. That is exactly backwards. We should be talking about how more black families can own homes, build businesses, create wealth and pass something meaningful on to the next generation — not how government can control a larger share of the economy around them.

Mayor Mamdani’s government-run grocery store proposal is a good example. I understand the appeal of saying government can step in where people are struggling with affordability. Grocery prices are a very real concern for working families. But government operating grocery stores doesn’t address the underlying reasons food is expensive, and it puts taxpayers in the position of subsidizing a government-run competitor to private businesses — including the small and minority-owned businesses we should be encouraging to grow.

I also don’t think black Americans have anything to gain from assuming that more government control of our communities automatically means better outcomes. Government absolutely has a role to play: protecting civil rights, enforcing the law fairly, ensuring equal access to opportunity and removing barriers that keep people from competing. But there is a significant difference between government creating the conditions for people to succeed and government attempting to manage their economic lives for them.

The better vision is one that gives black Americans more ownership, more choices and more control over our own futures — not less.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Ayesha Kreutz:

It’s all the same—the same dang ole thing wrapped in new gift wrap. Regifting, of sorts. Renaming failed socialist policies.

Every empire that came for black communities has arrived promising to feed us. That is worth remembering before we hand Mayor Mamdani the keys to our grocery carts.

Socialism does not ask black Americans to trust government less, it asks us to trust ourselves less, our churches less, our own enterprise less, our own hands less, and it ends the same way for everyone, every time.

From the plantation that promised provision in exchange for labor, to the housing project that promised shelter in exchange for compliance, to the welfare system that promised a safety net but built a spiderweb instead. Every time the government says trust us, the black family shrinks and black bureaucracy grows, making us dependent on government on both ends.

Proverbs tells us the borrower is servant to the lender, and a people who cannot feed themselves without the state’s permission are not being liberated, they are being caged.

That is where Mamdani’s grocery stores will take us. A government that runs your grocery store will decide what is on the shelf, what you are permitted to buy, and who gets how much of what, when and why. The price of groceries becomes the price of your compliance and obedience to that government, and no system, agency or city hands back that kind of power for free.

Mayor Mamdani wants to subsidize government-run grocery stores at a rate no private grocer, corner store or supplier can match. Socialists don’t want competition; they want control. Flood a market with cut-rate government milk and bread long enough, and the mom and pop shop closes, the regional chain pulls out, and the neighborhood that used to have three places to buy food now has one, and it belongs to the city.

There is one law that does not bend for any mayor, and that is supply and demand. You cannot manufacture abundance by decree; you can only borrow it, and the bill always comes due. Once the private grocers are gone and the subsidy runs out—because thirty percent off everyone’s groceries in a city that size is not sustainable, not permanent, not even close—the neighborhood is left with empty shelves and no one left to fill them.

Then they tell you who can eat what and how much. I mean, they are feeding you for free, so if you use too much salt or sugar or go over a certain weight, of course they have the right to say something. It is taxpayer money. This is all by design. This is not freedom for everyone; it is a people who cannot buy their own bread without asking the city’s permission.

And when the shelves finally empty out, don’t be surprised when the mayor points anywhere but the mirror. He’ll find someone else to blame for the food desert his own policy built, then say government just needs more control to fix it.

This is where every socialist promise ends up: not with the poor lifted, but with the poor managed. First it is groceries, then it is where you can shop, then it is what counts as an acceptable diet, then it is who gets priority when the shelves run short. Government does not hand back power once it has it. That is why every economy built this way eventually breaks, and the people underneath it are always the ones who pay for the breaking.

We don’t need a landlord with a badge. We need capital, contracts and a fair shot in a market that has too often locked us out. Everything government control has ever built “for us” has eventually been used to control us. Every dollar of dependency has cost us a generation of dignity. What we gain from more government control of our communities is what we have always gained: failed schools, pipelines to prison, fake options, and a permanent seat at the back of a table we should be building ourselves.

Frederick Douglass did not ask Congress for a grocery store; he asked for the ballot, the book and the freedom to labor for his own bread, and he called that combination the whole of the matter.

That is the fix: ownership, education and enterprise, in that order, because a people who own nothing will eventually be told what to eat, what to think and what to believe by whomever is holding the keys.

We have been managed long enough. It is time we governed ourselves.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Evie “Shelly E” Harris: (excerpted from her Project 21 commentary)

After decades of government intervention in many predominantly black communities, why should we assume that giving government even more control will produce better results?

Socialism is often packaged as a panacea, particularly for those at the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. The promise is appealing: Government will provide the necessities of life and ensure that no one is left behind.

But there are two important questions that are too often overlooked: What does that security cost, and does it ultimately produce independence?

If government is becoming increasingly responsible for providing the necessities of life, we should ask a very basic question: Are we building citizens who need government less—or citizens who need government more?

Black Americans—all Americans—deserve policies that produce measurable improvements in their lives. (read more)

 

Project 21 Ambassador Brandon Brice:

The strongest criticism of socialism is not simply that “government does things.” America already has a mixed economy. The concern is what happens when government gradually becomes responsible for more of the essential economic decisions: housing, transportation, health care, employment, food distribution, education and business activity.

It is simple. The more resources government controls, the more important political power becomes. And that creates a particularly dangerous dynamic in historically disadvantaged communities: If the answer changes from administration to administration, a community can become politically dependent upon whoever happens to hold office. That is why economic independence is more durable than political dependence when we are talking about lower income communities.

Black Americans do not need to be afraid of every government program, but black Americans should scrutinize policies that replace private ownership with government ownership, especially when those policies could unintentionally undermine minority-owned businesses.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Dr. Linda Lee Tarver: (excerpted from her Project 21 commentary)

Black Americans should be particularly alarmed by the rise of socialism because our history is a journey from being controlled to being free, from being property to owning property, and from dependency imposed upon us to self-determination.

I do not use the word slavery lightly. Socialism is not the racial chattel slavery endured by our ancestors. But when government increasingly controls the necessities of life—food, housing, health care, education, employment and economic opportunity—it can create a dangerous form of modern economic servitude. The more government controls that you need to survive, the more power those who control government possess over you.

That is not empowerment.

The slave master once said, “You cannot provide for yourself, so I must control you.” The socialist message sounds more compassionate: “You cannot adequately provide for yourself, so government must provide more for you, own more for you and make more decisions for you.”

Black Americans should be suspicious of anyone who attempts to repackage dependency as liberation. (read more)

 

Project 21 Ambassador Kendall Qualls:

What do you call a country where the general populace receives government‑funded housing, health care, and children’s education, yet still lives at or below the poverty line? A country where families endure generational misery while the top ten percent—the governing class—enjoy stable homes, intact families, elite schooling for their children and comfortable lives insulated from the consequences of their own policies?

It’s not Venezuela or Cuba. It’s the inner cities of Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and other urban cores in the U.S.

In these cities, the wealth gaps between black and Hispanic citizens and white citizens rank among the highest in the nation, with generational poverty deeply ingrained for decades. Large swaths of America’s urban cores now operate under a system that looks and functions remarkably similar to the socialist countries we ridicule. Government housing projects, Medicaid dependency and failing public schools dominate daily life. The results are measurable and grim: concentrated poverty that persists across generations, elevated crime, fatherless homes and diminished hope.

Meanwhile, the political class that administers these programs—mayors, council members, school administrators, nonprofit executives and community organizers—live far removed from the consequences of the policies they defend.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Bishop Garland Hunt:

Black Americans—and frankly, all Americans—should be deeply concerned about the rise of socialism, which is government control. Socialists believe the government should control everything, including private property.

Without their input or consent, New Yorkers are on the hook for the high cost of Mayor Mamdani’s grocery stores. When socialists promise “free stuff,” it always costs more than estimated. Initially, Mamdani said the cost for five stores would be $70 million. More recently, the cost expanded to at least $30 million for one store.

The existing stores were quite upset about this announcement. Given the pushback, Mamdani agreed to potentially subsidize the existing stores, which means even more costs.

State-run grocery stores in Florida and Kansas have both shuttered due to lack of profitability.

While socialists suggest that they will get money from the wealthy to pay for free stuff, average citizens are usually the ones stuck with higher taxes. Nothing is free.

Black Americans have nothing to gain from government control measures. Socialism drives up costs, affordability is always an issue and the “community” is always left holding the bag.

Most of all, socialism is unbiblical. The Bible uplifts private property rights, and while God’s word does encourage generosity, it’s quite different from wealth redistribution. The Bible calls upon us to give to the less fortunate, and yet it’s a moral act and not a function of government. Socialism promises support regardless of effort. The Bible says, “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

 

Project 21 Ambassador George Williams:

As a Vietnam combat veteran and retired DEA Special Agent who spent nearly 30 years in government service, including almost 11 years serving in Brazil and Nigeria, I have seen firsthand the threats that can undermine a nation.

Today, America faces a serious internal threat from those seeking to undermine our Constitution and fundamentally change our form of government. We cannot allow that to happen.

Our colleges and universities have increasingly become dominated by anti-American ideologies, while our borders and immigration laws remain in need of strong enforcement. The American people must recognize the seriousness of these threats and act before it is too late.

If we fail to defend our Constitution, enforce our laws, and secure our borders, we risk losing the America we know and love.

 

Project 21 Ambassador David Lowery, Jr.:

Black Americans are at a precipice. The left has taken our votes for granted and is now discarding us as illegal migrants take over our communities. Policies that promised progress produced dependency, weakened the black family and drained economic strength from our communities.

We have failing schools, broken families, crime and economic decline—and too many black leaders are more concerned with their own status than fixing the problems.

Look at Chicago. Liberal leadership has turned a beautiful city into a cautionary tale of failed government policies and growing dependency. We’re now worse off than before these policies were implemented. That was not an accident—it was the predictable result of a political agenda that turned a once-great city like Chicago into a hub for government assistance. Proposals for government-run grocery stores offer more of the same failed prescription: more government instead of more opportunity.

This is our last stand. We must reject bad leadership, rebuild our families, strengthen our businesses, demand better schools and take control of our economic future. We must stop allowing any political party to assume it owns our votes. If we don’t change course, we risk losing the black community we fought so hard to build.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Emery McClendon:

Blacks should be very concerned about the rise of socialism in America. Many blacks have no clue what real socialism is, and how detrimental it is to their well-being as a people.

Socialism is destroying the black family because it removes self-will and incentives that promote independence, personal advancement and upward mobility. Socialism places government control over personal freedom, economic freedom and individual well-being. For blacks, this type of elevated control only adds more misery to the social and economic woes that have plagued our communities since the so-called Great Society.

Programs such as Mayor Mamdani’s grocery stores will harm the ability for blacks to continue to make nutritional choices to stay healthy. The government will control what staples they can purchase and consume. Many items will simply not be available under such a system.

Blacks have nothing to gain from more government control and socialism — including the rebranded Democratic Socialists of America.

Black families have been torn apart by bad government policies in the past and present eras. More government control will further degrade our communities and spike crime rates and immorality.

Many blacks are feeling the consequences of bad government programs. We don’t need more government meddling into the affairs of blacks and other Americans. Blacks need to be able to be self sufficient and have a clear vision of how to make progress in the future so that they can improve their standard of living. Socialism fails to provide a clear path to prosperity and self-worth.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Steven Perry:

I don’t really think black people are alarmed; the siren isn’t going off, period. Socialism has been wrapped up as system to break up the “slave masters” economy. Our people are not aware of the consequences of the last century. Think about it, the way we describe systems to our people—we start with a person. We use the word “dictator.” We look at what the dictator did; we look at how the dictator got power. But nobody talks about the vision of that leader. So we will hear about Stalin, Hitler, Lenin and Mao, but nobody says “communist and fascist” leaders.

What our people need to understand is that we will get more and worse of what we’ve been given. We’ve been given democracy and lost freedom. We’ve been given food, but lost influence and respect. We’ve been given promises, just for people to leave us and not follow through on what they say.

Socialism is too expensive for a country the size of America. If we adopt socialism, our children will for sure experience the firing line or the gulags, because there won’t be enough resources to feed them and not enough incentive to motivate them to compete to have the best product for them.

 

Project 21 Ambassador Mike Hill:

Socialism is government control of the means of production, including labor. It is impossible for socialism and capitalism to function coherently within the same society. Socialism requires an oligarchy to make decisions for the desires of the masses. The oligarchy can’t possibly know what each individual or groups of people want or need because that constantly changes.

Imagine someone leaving their house thinking they would purchase a Ford F150, but actually buying a Chevrolet Silverado instead due to a variety of reasons. If even that person didn’t know what they wanted, how can anyone else?

Socialism is inefficient because it places resources in areas of production that aren’t needed or wanted. Socialism requires the state to force someone to make a product when that individual may not want to work there, but the oligarchy has determined that it is needed and at a set wage. It is antithetical to freedom and abhorrent to the American culture and psyche.

 

Project 21 Freedom Fellow Zion Williams:

Black Americans in particular should pay attention to what the rise in socialism could mean long term.

While Mayor Mamdani’s grocery store plan may sound appealing if it lowers costs, we should also consider the potential cost of greater government involvement.

Government assistance can be helpful, but too much government control can come at the expense of individual choice and independence.

I don’t believe the government needs to be involved in everything, even when the immediate benefits sound appealing.