With federal desegregation in the early 1920s, the postal service became one of the first and largest opportunities for Black people to become a part of the middle class. Today, nearly 50% of postal workers are Black and brown folks. For the everyday Black worker, the postal service has represented the dignified, stable employment they deserve and are often refused elsewhere. To defund the USPS would be to deny future generations this opportunity and dishonor the legacy of Black postal workers.
Now, we’re taking this matter into our own hands by writing and sending #BlackLoveLetters through USPS. In our #BlackLoveLetters video, we asked parents to write love letters to their children. Their letters embody everything our movement stands for: why Black Lives Matter.
Learn more through this video about our #BlackLoveLetters campaign and why it’s so important that we participate in writing #BlackLoveLetters to one another — then, get to writing!
Watch our #BlackLoveLetters video of parents and children:
#BlackLoveLetters is BLM’s first economic justice campaign. So when we say fund the postal service and defund the police, we mean it. We mean fund Black legacy and Black history.
While we do our part, we also believe the federal government should get to work ensuring the long term success of the USPS through programs such as postal banking. Measures like this would not only increase employment and revenue at the postal service but also further economic justice by expanding access to secure banking in communities of color.
Through #BlackLoveLetters, we are celebrating our historic contributions to the USPS and demanding that our legacy be protected. Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing on social media remixes of stamps celebrating Black people done by supremely talented Black artists as well as love letters written by some of our friends which you can see in our video.
By sending #BlackLoveLetters, we are centering love, connection, and beauty in a time of isolation, tension, and change. Every day, we embody the spirits of our ancestors and can connect through this creative intervention — all the while, it fuels our movement as we uplift and support our friends and family at the USPS.
Whether you’re writing to yourself, to an ancestor, to this country, to a friend, or to a family member, there are so many ways to get creative with this. Then, just buy a few stamps at your nearest post office, and send it!
Together, we heal, we love, and we connect to one another near and far as we celebrate and support our historical and current ties to the U.S. Postal Service.
