Nichole L. Rogers: Advocate for Albuquerque's Black Community through access, inclusion, outreach

NICHOLE L. ROGERS is the Liaison for the City of Albuquerque’s Office of Black Community Engagement within the Office of Equity and Inclusion. She has been in this role for one and a half years and said that the Black community has been great with helping to expand community engagement. “I think they know that historically, the Black community hasn’t had a lot of equitable access to all of the resources of the City of Albuquerque, and it’s taken a while to learn what all those resources are so that I know what needs to be communicated,” she said.

A mother of two, Nichole is originally from north central New Mexico and she has lived in Albuquerque for 30 years. “My family is part of the Baca family from Chama and so faith runs deep,” she said. Nichole shared that there are nine Assemblies of God pastors on her mom’s side of her family, and six pastors on her dad’s side. So, family, faith, and community are important to her. 

When Nichole started working as the Liaison for Black Community Engagement there were 126 Black employees out of a total of 6,000 at the City of Albuquerque (CABQ). One of her goals is to see a year-over-year increase in that number for the next three years.

In addition, she hopes to see increases in access to grants, contracts, and internships. She wants the community to see CABQ building a friendly and safe work place for people of faith where they can show up as their authentic selves. And, she envisions a workplace “where Christians can come here and feel safe to work and not feel like they have to hide that [their faith] about themselves,” she stated.  Reflecting on Mayor Keller’s Faith Leaders Breakfast presentation on August 14, 2022, Nichole said, “We’re lucky we have a mayor who embraces faith, and he talked about that faith and his faith journey and religion.” 

Identifying Albuquerque’s Black Community

There is no ‘Black neighborhood’ in Albuquerque. Albuquerque’s Black population resides in all quadrants of the city, which makes outreach challenging. Using data from the 2020 U.S. Census, a heat map was generated to show clusters of the Black population in Albuquerque and throughout New Mexico. By generating the heat map, Nichole said they were able to see a big increase in the Black population on Albuquerque’s west side, and in Mesa Del Sol, where there is a cluster of approximately 405 Black households. 

In addition to using the heat map to identify and connect with Albuquerque’s Black communities, Nichole partnered with advocacy groups, including the New Mexico Black Leadership Council, New Mexico Central Organizing Committee, NAACP, New Mexico Office of African American Affairs, New Mexico Martin Luther King, Jr. State Commission, Albuquerque African American Chamber of Commerce, Albuquerque Black faith leaders, and others. Subsequently, she has identified 18 intersecting groups within the Black community, which resulted in her vision to form a 20-to-25-member panel to develop a strategic plan to address her top priorities. Two of those priorities are closing the racial wealth gap over the next three years and connecting youth to programs through the Obama Foundation’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. 

Challenges in Albuquerque’s Black Community 

Through her work with the New Mexico Black Centralizing Committee to pass the CROWN Act, Nichole saw first-hand that anti-blackness is a major challenge in New Mexico’s Black communities. The CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, is a law that prohibits discrimination based on hair texture and hairstyle like protective braids and locks. Upon travelling around the state and listening to people talk about hair discrimination in schools and at work it became evident to Nichole that blackness is not normalized in New Mexico.  “I think that has been pretty eye-opening that we have a lot of work to do around just normalizing blackness. I think that is something we can easily do if we have more black leaders,” she said. “I don’t think it’s because our state is more racist than any other state,” she continued. She said for blackness to be normalized in New Mexico, Black people have to be visible and CABQ leaders must highlight Black folks in their advertisements and social media outlets. 

Equitable access to CABQ resources has been a barrier for the Black community because “we don’t know what’s available,” she said. She feels it is her job to ensure the Black community is made aware of what CABQ has to offer, and to educate CABQ leaders on how to use available outreach tools to ensure specific marketing campaigns to diverse communities. 

Another challenge Nichole has identified in the Black community is a lack of space, a hub or community center where we can do our own work, she said. “I think the Black community wants something that is owned by the Black community, led by the Black community, but funded by lots of places,” she stated.  

Engaging Albuquerque’s Black Youth

Nichole’s vision to help close the racial wealth gap for Albuquerque’s Black community starts with its youth by providing them with paid internships and intense mentorships so that graduation and home ownership rates go up. Working with Black Student Unions and My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, Nichole hopes to secure paid summer internships with the CABQ and to allot membership on her strategic planning committee for Black youth engagement.