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Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves at the CBC Reception Hosted by the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) at the Commerce Department

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Thank you, Eric, for your leadership, partnership and for being with us tonight. Thanks to Meeks, Green, Ivey. Michigan’s fantastic Lt. Gov. Garland Gilchrist. It is great to be together this week of the CBC Annual Legislative Conference.

As we all know, the Biden-Harris Administration has been historic and productive for the American people. We’re making major investments in infrastructure. We’re boosting domestic manufacturing. We’re taking meaningful action to combat the climate crisis. And through it all, we’re focused on ensuring everyone can share in our prosperity. All of this was made possible thanks to the work of members of the CBC, who do an incredible job delivering for the American people.

Through MBDA’s $125 million Capital Readiness Program, we’re funding incubators and accelerators with expertise to get minority and other underserved entrepreneurs the resources, tools, and technical assistance they need to start or scale their businesses.

We’re investing $50 billion to connect everyone in America to quality reliable and affordable high-speed Internet service, with about $3 billion of that going towards equity focused programs, and more than $250 million going to HBCUs and other Minority-Serving Institutions.

 We’re investing $50 billion to make America a leader in semiconductor manufacturing, with a focus and requirement of the companies in which we are investing that they develop pathways into the industry for communities that all too often have been left behind and that they make minority and other underserved businesses a key part of these ecosystems.

I am so proud to be the current Chair of the Interagency Community Investment Committee, launched by Vice President Harris 3 years ago, with a focus on ensuring that the billions of dollars of investment that we are making flows to and through communities that are often left behind instead of around them.  And the committee is continuing the Vice President’s Economic Opportunity Tour, making certain that our communities know about these investments and have direct access to the resources, tools and technical assistance they will need to participate and thrive in this Opportunity Economy.

But our priority is ensuring that we are a Department that puts its money where its mouth is at home.

Here at Commerce, its critical that our leadership and our workforce reflect the diversity of this nation. So I’d like to take a moment to mention just a few of the folks across the Department who have been filling Black jobs:

  • Michael Morgan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and Deputy Administrator of NOAA
  • Derrick Brent, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
  • Eric Morrisette, our Acting Undersecretary for Minority Business Development
  • Alejandra Castillo, Assistant Secretary for Economic Development
  • Tonya Williams, my Chief of Staff and then Vice-President Biden’s Director of Legislative Affairs
  • Jeremiah JJ Jones, Director of the National Technical Information Service

They embody this simple principle: that people drive policy. And our policies need to be about uplifting people. 

When you think about how our major investment programs like CHIPS, Broadband, and climate resiliency play out,

When you think about the ways we drive and protect innovation, 

about how we enhance and grow our local and regional economies,

about the ways we support the risk takers who start and grow new businesses employing people in all of our country’s communities,

How we do that is determined by people and their diversity of thought, their experience, their capabilities.

And that doesn’t happen by accident.

It’s no accident that for decades policy makers systemically discriminated against our communities. 

It's no accident that policies of the past have left our entrepreneurs and our companies out of the equation.

It’s no accident that Black families’ median wealth is just a fraction of their white counterparts, or that Black people struggle every day to access the same opportunities – capital, contracts, careers – as their white counterparts.

But because of the leadership of our President and our Vice President and the hard work of this Department and many others across this Administration, as well as industry leaders and community stakeholders, we’re being intentional about righting these wrongs.

That’s why it’s also no accident that in communities where at least 30% of the population identify as Black, Commerce has obligated 457 awards totaling billions of dollars.

It’s no accident that our CHIPS HBCU Network is inspiring and educating more eager young Black scientists and engineers on the technology of the future, or that we launched the Tech Hubs program that is helping reshape places like Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Black Wall Street” into a mecca of tech talent.

And it’s certainly no accident that we are all here with this evening. All of these achievements, and more, represent the conscious decision we have all made to do something – to take action.  

And that, my friends, is why it is so important to make the choice of who we put in these positions – to whom we give a seat at the table – a priority. 

Because we know that a seat at the table is about more than affecting policy, it’s about making the type of change that will impact the lives of Black families across the country, and making our economy more dynamic and stronger. So, once again, thank you again for everything you’ve done. I’m excited to continue working with the CBC and all of you to support our community.

Leadership