The Rev. Quardricos Driskell, a Baptist pastor in Alexandria, Virginia, and federal lobbyist, represented the Black Churches 4 Digital Equity as Black church advocates sought congressional action for the subsidy.
“As a result of our efforts, Congress passed the Emergency Broadband Benefit, and that was the first time in this country that a subsidy was created for the Internet,” he told Religion News Service.
Now the organizations involved are pushing to get the same backing for ACP. The Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner, co-convener of the National African American Clergy Network, has distributed a sample letter it is encouraging faith leaders to send to political representatives.
“Based on current take rates, the funding appropriated for the ACP program ($14.2B) could be exhausted in late 2023 or early 2024,” the letter states. “Congress must act now to replenish ACP funding for a few years until longer-term subsidy reforms are in place. If the ACP program expires, millions of households, and hundreds of thousands across the south, will lose financial support for their broadband needs.”
Williams-Skinner has been leading training events in several Southern states in recent months to build awareness about the Affordable Connectivity Program.
“What surprised me — I guess, shocked me — was the number of churches that don’t have any internet at all and are doing church by phone,” she said. “There are churches near, and people near, places where there are no internet carriers at all. There are no towers at all. So you have people going and sitting outside of hotels, restaurants to do homework or to get online to talk to their doctor, or all of the things you and I take for granted.”
Though much of the rural South may deal with lack of access, residents of more urban settings do as well.
Kanika Welch, executive director of The Bean Path, a technology education nonprofit in Jackson, Mississippi, that works with Black Churches 4 Digital Equity, said she spoke at a school in the state’s capital earlier this year and found that some students said they knew someone who didn’t have internet in their homes or didn’t have a laptop or desktop computer.
“People are raising their hands in 2023,” she said. “I think that just goes to show we still have a lot of work to do. The internet, at this point, is not a privilege. It’s a right. You need the internet to live.”
This reporting is part of a collaboration with the Institute for Nonprofit News‘ Rural News Network, and the Energy News Network, Flatwater Free Press, Mississippi Free Press, New Mexico In Depth, Religion News Service and Sierra Nevada Ally. Support from the Walton Family Foundation made the project possible.
This article originally appeared here.
