Who Gets the Future? Digital Redlining in the Black Rural South

By Jasmine Davenport, Senior Director of Green For All

Growing up in Monroe, Louisiana, I learned early that where you lived quietly factored into what doors were easier (or harder) to open. Long before we had language like “digital equity” or “broadband gaps,” I saw how opportunity, investment and digital infrastructure were often uneven and limited, especially depending on what side of town you lived in.  Now that I’m raising my family in Howard County, Maryland – one of the most affluent and highly educated counties in America – the contrast is stark. Solid access to the internet is no longer a luxury or convenience, but rather an expected foundation for safety, stability, and opportunity. 

About 1 in 3 households in the Black Rural South lack access to the internet, nearly twice the rate of their White and Asian counterparts. Digital disinvestments in rural communities like my hometown Monroe deepen racial and economic barriers to opportunities like education, jobs, healthcare, and community resources. Once the COVID-19 pandemic peaked, these disparities became even more obvious and uneven. As technology rapidly evolves, we find ourselves still working to keep these communities from being left further behind.

In the 1930’s, the housing industry built the blueprint for systemic infrastructure discrimination with maps that dictated what neighborhoods could be approved for home loans or insurance and which ones could not. Black neighborhoods were marked “hazardous,” and disproportionately denied access to resources to help them become homeowners, build stability, and ultimately create generational wealth.

These redlined Black neighborhoods were often combined with environmental disparities, like known pollution and bad air quality. In 2026, we see the same playbook played out today. Underinvestment in digital infrastructure in rural Black, Brown, and low-income communities while simultaneously overinvesting in hyperscale data centers that eat up local resources, offer little to no jobs, and pollute the air in these same neighborhoods.

“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” 

In 1932, President Franklin Roosevelt said these words during his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance speech. Over the next few years during the Great Depression, he implemented the New Deal, a series of programs that provided relief for the poor and unemployed, economic recovery, and financial reform. Although the New Deal expanded opportunity for many Americans, it also institutionalized racial exclusion of many other Americans. The housing industry, for example, standardized redlining policies and the discrimination of Black families through deliberate denial of resources. Where the housing industry prioritized development, is where the internet industry prioritized development.

Charlotte, North Carolina is a growing hub attracting many young Black professionals and families that often relocate from large coastal cities or nearby rural areas. It’s ranked No. 2 in the country for Black entrepreneurship with growing economic mobility for Black residents. Although the city is in a growth surge, the negative impact of digital redlining still persists. After establishing the country’s first Office of Digital Equity and Literacy in 2021, nearly 56,000 households in the Charlotte region’s Mecklenburg County still do not have internet access. 

At the same time, Charlotte and neighboring cities are seeing a data center boom that’s hidden in plain sight with severe lack of public disclosure on where and how these warehouses are built. The energy demand of the projected 30 data centers across the Carolinas could more than double the current energy needs across the region. This tale of two-cities, one of expansion and exhaustion of resources, is partially why Dream.Org launched the Green Reentry Incubator, to ensure our most vulnerable justice-impacted communities are not left behind and to help them become part of the clean energy solutions we need.

Charlotte is just one example of many places across the Black Rural South. The same communities that were redlined from Roosevelt's New Deal, are still the hardest hit when it comes to lack of digital access, excessive use of local resources, and environmental pollution all at the same time. The neglect of these communities must be replaced by responsibly clean innovation that creates opportunity, not shrinks it.

Equal access means being able to plug in and build a sustainable life where you are, not just where investment decides to land. Anything less isn’t innovation. It’s exclusion. That’s why at Dream.Org, we fight for second chances and systems that don’t leave people behind. We fight for everyone in America to have equal access to the American dream. Because innovation should expand opportunity, not decide who gets it.