NASHVILLE – State Rep. Yusuf Hakeem and fellow legislative leaders warned Wednesday that Black residents and other poor-to-lower-middle-class Tennesseans face being undercounted by the U.S. Census Bureau, which could cost them in terms of political representation and millions of dollars in funding for programs.
Hakeem, a Chattanooga Democrat who chairs the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators’ committee for the census and subsequent political redistricting, joined fellow leaders in a teleconference call to underscore the importance of participating in the once-a-decade count of the U.S. population as an accelerated Sept. 30 deadline looms.
“What we’re trying to do is put forward a full-court press through the medical community, through education, through our houses of worship – how important it is in regards to the census and the impact that it has on our communities,” Hakeem said.
For those who ask “why are we pushing this so much in the Chattanooga community, we have 14 census blocks that have less than 50% of the persons who’ve been counted,” Hakeem said. “So that means an awful lot of dollars can stay off the table because we have not been able to get to those persons or not enough trusted leaders going into the communities to deal with those concerns.”
Hakeem said that, while President Donald Trump’s accelerated timeline to end the census on Sept. 30 has been challenged in court, “We can’t count on that. We have to move forward with what we have.”