Aisha Nyandoro, the founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, is on a mission to end generational poverty and boost Black mothers' economic freedom.

In addition to the nonprofit’s other work to support residents of federally subsidized housing, Springboard is home to the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), a guaranteed income program that has supported hundreds of Black mothers in Jackson, Miss., with $1,000 each month for 12 months. (For firsthand stories from MMT participants and other Black women navigating poverty and resilience, explore Front & Center, Ms.’ groundbreaking series in collaboration with Springboard to Opportunities.)

Magnolia Mother’s Trust is now the longest-running guaranteed income project in the country, supporting Black mothers' economic freedom—and since 2018, it has challenged narratives around poverty and economic justice that gloss over race and gender or veer into notions of “deservedness.”

As part of the third episode of the Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, I talked to Nyandoro about the policy choices that create poverty, the power of cash without restrictions as an antidote, and why we all need to challenge ourselves to rethink poverty, class and capital.

Nyandoro is joined in this episode by labor icon Dolores Huerta, National Women’s Law Center vice president for education and workplace justice Gaylynn Burroughs, labor and women’s rights historian Premilla Nadasen, and economists Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino. Together, we traced 50-plus years of feminist resistance to workplace discrimination, women’s disproportionate unpaid domestic and care burdens, and the sociopolitical factors that push women, in larger numbers, into poverty—revealing both how the system seeks to devalue all of “women’s work,” and what we can do about it.

Carmen Rios: What was your journey to founding Springboard to Opportunities, to launching The Magnolia Mother’s Trust? What has led you to this work and kept you in this work?

Aisha Nyandoro: The beauty of my life is I always knew I was going to do movement nonprofit work. I am the granddaughter of the Civil Rights Movement. I am a daughter of the South. I always knew that I would do work rooted in community. I always knew that I would do work within the South, because I was always taught that you grow where you’re planted.

Read the full article about supporting Black mothers’ economic freedom by Carmen Rios at Ms. Magazine.