A Harlem Times New Voices Q&A
“Until the lion learns to write, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” — African proverb
The lion is learning to write. Tuesday’s election was not the end of a story. It was the first page of one, and this time we intend to hold the pen.
What no one is saying out loud is this: we are standing at one of the most critical points in American history. Jobs are vanishing, artificial intelligence is arriving, our universities are under strain, and families are fighting for access to food. This is not a moment for sitting back. It is an existential battle, and our leadership must take a stand.
That is why The Harlem Times is launching New Voices, a series that will interview every incoming and incumbent elected official we can reach. Congressman Glenn Ivey of Maryland’s 4th District was the first to reach out to us. He called from his front porch on Wednesday morning, hours before boarding an overnight flight to Italy with a congressional delegation.
The Conversation
The Harlem Times: What were voters telling Washington on Tuesday?
Congressman Ivey: We ran on the affordability agenda, and I think that’s what folks voted on. Gas prices, grocery prices, tariffs that forced prices up across the board. People figured it out. And the real issues are: How are you going to find jobs? How are you going to get the training? What’s going to happen when AI lands and starts making some of these jobs go away? The big challenges we’ve got are for young folks.
The Harlem Times: Prince George’s County is often called the Harlem of the Washington region, one of the most prosperous Black communities in America. What can Harlems everywhere learn from how it built that wealth, and what does it still need?
Congressman Ivey: Black wealth was built here by African Americans with college and graduate degrees working in the federal government, saving their money, buying houses, being frugal. The millionaire-next-door story. That foundation took a punch in the gut. Maryland lost 31,000 federal jobs, many of them here. I have constituents at NIH, including a PhD in neurobiology researching a cure for Alzheimer’s, whose clinical trial was shut down and who was fired. Rebuilding all of that is a piece of what we need to do. So is housing. The average age to buy a starter home is now about forty. Turning that around is going to be important.
The Harlem Times: You spent eight years as a prosecutor. In Harlem and communities like it, people want both safe streets and fair treatment. How do you deliver both?
Congressman Ivey: They’re not mutually exclusive at all. Baltimore has had record-low homicides. Cities figured out strategies for reducing violent crime that have been enormously successful, and they’ve worked in both D.C. and Baltimore. That funding was cut. Restoring it is not only easy to do, it’s the smart thing to do. As a state’s attorney I prosecuted officers who used excessive force against unarmed people, and I’ve handled white-collar cases. We’ve got to do the suites and the streets at the same time. Otherwise it comes off as unfair to people, and rightly so.
The Harlem Times: What comes first for this Congress?
Congressman Ivey: Affordability and accountability. The nation needs both. Bring down gas prices and grocery prices. Extend the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. And roll back the trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid that was timed to phase in after the election, before families feel it. We have dozens of committees, and each will carry part of the load.
The Harlem Times View: We Are Not Out of the Woods
The interview ends here. What follows is the view of The Harlem Times.
There is energy and hope in the air, and there will be backlash too. This opportunity must not be squandered. We must seek justice and pursue education at the same time, because a people who cannot compete cannot stay free.
That means preparing our children for the age of AI. It means saving our universities, getting fresh food to every block, restoring the government contracts that built Black middle-class wealth, and building partnerships between public and private interests that benefit all of us.
So we call on every American: do not simply rebuild. Use your creative energy to build new industries. Meet the world with both our minds and our compassion for others. Restore optimism, and then put it to work.
“When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” — Ethiopian proverb
One united voice. That is how we win this moment.
— Paul Jackson, Publisher, The Harlem Times
About New Voices
The Harlem Times will interview every incumbent and newly elected member of Congress and every elected official who will speak with us. Each profile tells their backstory, their vision and their plan, and asks one question: where do we go from here?
The series will run in three tracks:
- The Incumbents: veterans like Congressman Ivey on what must be restored and who must be held accountable.
- The New Members: first-time winners on the ideas they bring and the industries they want to build.
- One Voice: a closing roundtable on education, AI, our universities, food access, government contracts and public-private partnership.
Background on Congressman Ivey: former assistant U.S. attorney, twice elected state’s attorney for Prince George’s County, member of the House Appropriations and Ethics Committees. In the 118th Congress he served on the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Ethics Committees, according to the Associated Press.