For Immediate Release
New Georgia Project 

contact: [email protected]  

(Atlanta, GA) – On the eve of the Supreme Court of the United States’ hearing of two cases that will determine the future of President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness plan, 45 young, Black and brown borrowers from all over Georgia will board a bus headed for D.C. to make their voices heard in front of SCOTUS. The trip will be led by Maggie Bell, Lead Organizer for New Georgia Project’s C.L.E.A.R. Campaign, which stands for “Cancel Loans for Education and Reparations” and organizes Georgia borrowers around full student loan debt cancellation. Though not the full cancellation NGP ultimately seeks, the President’s plan is a necessary first step to closing the staggering racial wealth gap that continues to impact Black families across America.
 

“Student debt cancellation is one of the defining issues of my generation,” says Maggie Bell, 24, Lead Organizer for C.L.E.A.R. and recent HBCU graduate. “Like so many of my peers, I believed higher education was my path to success in life. Instead, I have a growing pile of debt that is holding me back. And I’m not alone. I speak to Black and brown student borrowers across Georgia every day: the burden of their debt is heavy. Many of us fear we may never be able to own a home, raise a family, or retire without our student debt being cancelled. What about our reality is the ‘American Dream?’”
  

The February 28th People’s Rally—to be held in collaboration between NGP and over 20 national organizations, including the NAACP, Debt Collective, and SEIU—will be the second time Bell has led a group of Georgia borrowers to D.C. In July 2022, NGP’s affiliate organization New Georgia Project Action Fund hosted a rally outside the White House to advocate for federal student debt cancellation. One month later, the President announced his plan—the fate of which now rests in the hands of nine Justices.
 

This year, on the last day of Black History Month, New Georgia Project hopes that the Supreme Court will hear not only the arguments inside the court but also the voices of the hundreds of borrowers outside, representing millions of Black and brown Americans who are in overwhelming support of this life-changing policy.  

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