Public policy in the service of economic empowerment — built under the 51st Administration, and carried to the leaders of both parties, in the months before April 9.
Archons,
Among the commitments I placed before you was a fourth pillar for our Fraternity: public policy in the service of economic empowerment. The conviction behind it was a simple one — that the interplay between government, the financial markets, and business is the key to how wealth in the American system is created, preserved, and passed on, and that Sigma Pi Phi could put that conviction to work for our members and for the broader Black community.
Under that mandate, the Grand Boulé Public Policy Committee broadened its mission and went to work — drafting legislation across business, taxes, and foreign policy, and setting itself a concrete aim: to help five to seven Black-owned businesses win one billion dollars in federal contracts. The documents below are the record of that work.
And the work was not partisan. In a single year it engaged the leadership of both parties — from the House Democratic Leader and the Governor of Maryland to the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and members of the House majority. The collective voice of the Fraternity was carried into rooms where economic policy is actually made. Read the record, and measure it against what you have since been told.
Loren R. Douglass
51st Grand Sire Archon
The Program
The committee’s 2025 mission and legislative agenda, in its own words.
2025 Program — The Grand Public Policy Committee
2025 · Committee mission and legislative agenda
The committee’s working program, built on the principle that government, the financial markets, and business together drive wealth creation. Its economic-empowerment agenda included federal deposits with Minority Depository Institutions at mission-driven rates; low-cost capital to start or acquire businesses through the Small Business Administration; incentives for affordable-housing construction; and best-value — not lowest-cost — federal contracting, already passed in the House. The aim: to help five to seven Black-owned businesses secure one billion dollars in federal contracts.
The architecture of the Fourth Pillar — the Boulé at the center, linked to government, capital, corporations, and its own members.
B.E.E.S. — the Boulé Economic Empowerment Summit. A framework for connecting the Fraternity to government, the financial markets, corporations, and its own members.
Engagement Across the Aisle
The leaders the committee convened, in a single year, to advance the agenda.
June 3, 2024
Capitol engagement
Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Leader of the United States House of Representatives.
August 20, 2024
Policy convening
Jaime Harrison, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Congressman James Clyburn; Governor Wes Moore of Maryland; Steve Benjamin, Senior Advisor to the President; and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
September 25, 2024
Policy convening
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; Congressman Burgess Owens of Utah; Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida; Don Graves, Deputy Secretary of Commerce; and Steve Benjamin, Senior Advisor to the President.
At the Highest Levels
Recognition of the Fraternity at the highest levels of government.
With President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden.With Vice President Harris — who sent greetings to the Grand Sire Archon’s inauguration — and the Second Gentleman, December 2023.With President Biden, at the White House.
The Convenings
Two gatherings that put the Fraternity’s voice in the room.
Senator Raphael Warnock and the Grand Sire Archon at the Opportunity Summit, Washington — February 2025.
The Opportunity Summit
February 18, 2025 · The Hart Senate Office Building, Washington
A policy summit convened inside the United States Senate. The program opened with a conversation with the Grand Sire Archon and featured remarks from Senator Raphael Warnock and Senator Pete Ricketts, a Senate-committee legislative discussion, a session with the State Financial Officers Foundation, and a closing fireside chat with Senator Tim Scott, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — closing with a reception at the Capitol.
During the national convention in Chicago, more than forty Archons and some two hundred guests gathered to honor party leadership — Chairman Jaime Harrison, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Archon Wes Moore, Archon Jim Clyburn, and Archon Steve Benjamin — alongside federal, state, and local officials. The reception was hosted by Archons in their personal capacity, neither funded nor sponsored by the Fraternity, and it opened doors: many in the room asked how to join the effort.
This is the policy pillar as it was built — a concrete agenda for economic empowerment, carried to the leaders of both parties, in the months before April 9, 2025. Read the documents, and decide for yourself who built it.
