Terrell Williams of Middletown is an attorney.
Delaware’s political landscape is changing and diversifying in ways that were unimaginable a decade or so ago. Black legislators now make up roughly 20% of Delaware’s General Assembly, with increased visibility in leadership positions, including speaker of the House and majority whip.
With the increased visibility and leadership roles of Black legislators in our state, I have often wondered: How effective have Delaware’s Black legislators been in advancing the interests of Black Delawareans? According to national statistics, Delaware ranks among the top 10 states with the largest Black populations. Black Delawareans make up 22%-24% of the state’s population, with large concentrations in New Castle County, particularly Wilmington, and in Kent County, including Dover. Depending on the metrics or issues examined, I have discovered that the results are mixed at best and dismal at worst.
To provide the clearest and most logical road map for evaluating the effectiveness of Delaware’s Black legislators, I have examined three of the most referenced topics impacting Black Delawareans on the campaign trail: the growing wealth gap between Black and White Delawareans, K-12 public education and, finally, police reform. All three of these issues are relevant to the experience, growth and sustainability of Black Delawareans.
The wealth divide between Black and White Delawareans
One of the biggest factors contributing to the economic challenges facing Delaware’s Black working and middle classes is the growing wealth gap between similarly situated Black and White households. Wealth is different from income. It includes the value of a family’s home, savings, investments, employment, businesses, retirement accounts and other assets, which provides financial security and can be passed down to future generations.
Nationally, the wealth gap between Black and White Americans remains significant. In 2013, Black households had approximately $1.2 trillion in collective spending power, yet the median Black family had only about $11,000 in wealth. In other words, Black families were contributing significantly to the economy and spending money, but they were not accumulating wealth at the same rate as White families.
Delaware is not immune to this problem. Black Delawareans continue to face significant disparities in homeownership, education, employment, business ownership, access to capital and other opportunities to build wealth. These disparities make it more difficult for Black families to achieve financial security and pass wealth on to their children. In 2022, Rep. Stephanie Bolden, D-Wilmington, sponsored legislation creating Delaware’s Racial Equity Consortium, which was signed into law by then-Gov. John Carney, to address these very issues. However, in the four years since this legislation has passed, this consortium has yet to yield any tangible results addressing the widening financial gap between Black and White Delawareans.
Homeownership is essential to building wealth, as property ownership remains one of the primary ways American families build, preserve and pass down wealth from one generation to the next. This raises an important question about the effectiveness of Delaware’s Black legislators and their impact on the lives of Black Delawareans. What I found most profound in writing this piece is that Black college graduates have lower homeownership rates than White high school dropouts. This demonstrates that education and income alone do not eliminate the racial barriers to homeownership.
Moreover, many Black Delawareans entering the housing market have struggled with the tension between class, income, affordability, desirability and accessibility. While redlining has largely been outlawed, many Black Delawareans still find themselves being steered to less desirable communities based on their race, instead of what they can afford. Contrasting the alternatives, if those same Black Delawareans were to buy houses in the more desirable communities, they are often done at considerable higher prices and interest rates, compared to their White counterparts.
With Black legislators holding more seats and increasingly powerful leadership positions in the General Assembly, are they using that political influence to close the racial wealth gap? The home-purchasing process is just one aspect of the Black plight in Delaware; renting in Delaware presents its own set of challenges for Black Delawareans. Black-owned businesses’ ability to access necessary capital for sustaining small businesses, state and federal grants, and government contracts have all been barriers to reducing the economic gap between Black and White Delawareans.
The legislation and solutions offered by Delaware’s Black legislators have often been hollow, ineffective, incomplete, poorly funded and convoluted, limiting Black Delawareans’ access to the very resources and opportunities needed to achieve and sustain financial independence and wealth.
Delaware’s K-12 public education system has failed Black students
Black students in Delaware’s K-12 public schools continue to face significant academic disparities. While overall graduation rates have improved in Delaware, Black students continue to lag behind their White peers in proficiency in core subjects, particularly reading comprehension, science and math. These disparities point to a persistent achievement gap that Delaware’s education system has struggled to address or has deliberately ignored.
On statewide assessments, including yearly tests and the SAT, Black students consistently record lower proficiency rates than their White peers. In recent years, the gap in reading and math has remained substantial, with Black students often performing 20-30 percentage points below White students. The problem extends beyond test scores. Black students make up a significant portion of Delaware’s public school population, yet Black educators remain underrepresented in the classrooms. Black teachers account for only about 11% of Delaware’s educational workforce. Research has shown that students can benefit academically and socially from having teachers who understand and reflect their cultural and community experiences. Conversely, Delaware is surrounded by seven historically Black colleges and universities within 100 miles of our state’s line, including our very own Delaware State University, which all have K-12 education as primary majors. That begs the question: Why hasn’t Delaware consistently targeted these institutions for recruitment for our public schools?
In addressing racial disparities in Delaware’s K-12 public schools, we must have an honest conversation about Delaware’s public school system, which consists of 19 independent school districts, often divided along lines that reflect economically disenfranchised communities. More importantly, while some Black legislators, such as Sen. Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman, D-Wilmington, and Rep. Rae Moore, D-Middletown, have focused on initiatives like universal breakfast for Delaware students, they have repeatedly overlooked the state’s funding formula, which perpetuates academic inequalities and deprives Black students of equitable access to a robust, high-quality public education.
It is important for Delaware’s teachers to get back to the business of teaching and educating our students. All Delaware students, especially our most vulnerable populations, deserve strong academic foundations and teachers who can focus on instruction. The primary role of our teachers is to teach!
I understand that many of our teachers have had to expand their roles from their primary responsibilities of teaching to address other issues that may impact our students’ abilities to learn. Our teachers are dedicated, compassionate and willing to help their students in any way possible, but teaching must remain their primary responsibility.
To make this possible, legislators must address the growing behavioral challenges affecting classroom learning. We need transparent and hard conversations about the difference between disruptive behavior and mental health needs. Delaware’s schools need and deserve additional resources and support staff, including social workers, counselors and community partners, so our teachers can focus on their primary responsibility, teaching, rather than taking on roles beyond their expertise and responsibilities.
According to some national surveys, disruptive student conduct is the biggest barrier to classroom instruction in public schools. Delaware’s inclusionary policies have limited teachers and administrators in properly addressing student conduct. It is time for Delaware to put forth meaningful and updated legislation outlining acceptable classroom behavior and appropriate school discipline, rather than treating every behavioral issue solely as a criminal justice, a mental health or a social work concern. Disruptive behavior is a real barrier to learning, not only for the student causing disruption but for every student in the classroom. Inclusionary policies and both federal- and state-mandated supports are important, but schools must also have fair and reasonable accountability measures that allow teachers to maintain safe, orderly and productive learning environments. Our teachers should be supported in doing what they do best: teaching and educating our students.
These are not new problems. Delaware has had years to address the achievement gap, teacher diversity, school funding, district fragmentation and classroom discipline. Yet these disparities persist. Black legislators, including Sens. Darius Brown, D-Wilmington, and Marie Pinkney, D-Bear, as well as Reps. Kendra Johnson, D-Bear; Franklin Cooke, D-New Castle; DeShanna Neal, D-Wilmington; and Kerri Evelyn Harris, D-Dover, hold significant positions in the General Assembly. However, their focus on niche fringe issues or lack of in-depth understanding on how to improve Delaware’s K-12 public school education have caused irreparable harm to all Delaware students.
Political representation should produce results. If Black students continue to underperform their White counterparts, schools remain underresourced, Black teachers remain significantly underrepresented and educators struggle to maintain effective classroom environments, then Delaware’s Black legislative leaders must be willing to accept responsibility and answer difficult questions about their effectiveness. The real measure of political leadership is whether that representation produces meaningful improvements in the lives of the people being represented. The jury remains out on this group of Black Delaware legislators, but their lack of real ideas and substantive changes leaves an even more uncertain future for all of Delaware’s K-12 students.
Delaware’s Black legislators have ignored police reform
Delaware’s Black legislators failed all Delawareans in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Instead of fighting for meaningful police reform, particularly changes to Delaware’s Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights, House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown, D-New Castle, and Reps. Franklin Cooke and Nnamdi Chukwuocha, D-Wilmington, supported legislation that fell short of the transparency and accountability most Delawareans were demanding across racial lines. In doing so, they turned their backs on residents calling for substantive reform, while challenging other Black legislators to oppose what they viewed as inadequate proposals.
Most notably, Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, D-Newark, the sole lawmaker to oppose the legislation, acknowledged that the amendments addressed some basic concerns raised by civil rights advocates, including requiring law enforcement to disclose investigation outcomes to complainants and victims of police misconduct. However, she argued that the bill failed to address the more fundamental problem: the lack of a fair and independent process for investigating police misconduct.
Wilson-Anton questioned the value of greater disclosure when police departments still control whether investigations are initiated, how they are conducted and whether misconduct occurred. Her central concern was that a limited compromise could ultimately become an obstacle to meaningful reform rather than a step toward it. Wilson-Anton’s words could not have been any more prophetic at that time, as Delaware continues to address concerns of police misconduct, accountability and transparency.
Despite the finger-pointing and infighting among Delaware’s Black state senators and representatives over what went wrong, the results speak for themselves. In the years since the passage of House bills 205 and 206, the Delaware Black Legislative Caucus has failed to deliver the meaningful and comprehensive police reform that Delawareans were promised.
The conversations leading up to the passage of HBs 205 and 206 reflected the tension between public demands for greater accountability and law enforcement’s desire to protect access to internal investigative records. As one account described it, “The bill, sponsored by then State Representative Melissa Minor-Brown, is a compromise between lawmakers, who have previously promised to improve public oversight of police departments, and law enforcement, who have an interest in limiting public access to internal investigative records.”
Former House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf further acknowledged the influence of law enforcement in shaping the legislation. He thanked the police officers involved, noting that they had “come forward with an idea” and expressed a willingness to work with lawmakers rather than continue fighting over the issue. His comments underscored an important question: Was the legislation designed primarily to provide Delawareans with greater police accountability or was it structured around what law enforcement was willing to accept? Rep. Frank Cooke, a key supporter of the legislation, characterized the changes as a starting point for future reform. He acknowledged that “we’ve got more work to do,” while arguing that the legislation represented progress because LEOBOR had not been meaningfully changed in decades. I guess Cooke forgot about the “future reform” part of this equation.
It’s no secret that many White state legislators allowed their Black counterparts to take the lead on meaningful police reform, which those Black legislators failed at miserably, with such an underwhelming thud. However, the central issue remains the same all these years later: If meaningful reform was still necessary, why did Delaware’s Black legislators accept legislation that left so much unfinished? Delawareans asked Black legislators to stop Delaware’s law enforcement officers from operating with immunity and impunity under the veil of the badge. Instead, what Delawareans received was HBs 205 and 206, which lacked the teeth necessary to implement meaningful changes within the state’s law enforcement agencies.
For instance, eight municipalities still have not established oversight committees, as of November 2025. Another 10 of the state’s 51 total departments list accountability boards on their websites, but those groups have only met once. Other departments, like the combined city of Dover and Delaware State University accountability board, have not heard a single citizen complaint since they began operating.
For Delawareans who demanded meaningful police accountability after George Floyd’s murder, incremental changes were not enough. The moment called for a fundamental examination of LEOBOR, greater transparency in police disciplinary proceedings, meaningful public oversight and stronger mechanisms for holding law enforcement officers and departments accountable. Instead, Delaware received a compromise heavily influenced by the very institutions that reform advocates were demanding greater oversight of. Years later, the continuing debate over police accountability suggests that the opportunity for transformative reform was not simply missed, it was compromised from the beginning.
Delaware’s Black representation among elected officials has improved greatly at all three levels of government. Delaware has elected Black women to statewide offices and has seen greater representation of Black Delawareans in various state and municipal offices. However, the increased representation in political office has not been met with the results many of us have desired. Black Delawareans are not monolithic in our values, education, economic circumstances or political beliefs. There is a stratification among the various classes and needs of Black Delawareans; however, certain central issues and topics bind us together, including economic growth, education and police reform. Therefore, it is important for Delaware’s Black legislators to ensure that these concerns are addressed through meaningful, measurable and tangible outcomes, through laws, legislation, policies and reforms.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
