It has been a year since the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 and injuring a hundred more. That accident prompted a formal review of the nation’s bridges. The resulting report is troubling: 152,000 of the nation’s 600,000 bridges are in need of a major overhaul. Experts estimate it will cost over $140 billion to repair or upgrade the bridges. While the cost of repairs is incomprehensible to most, the impact a federally-managed repair program would have could potentially uplift and empower some of the country’s most maligned citizens: the African-American male.

The staggering rate at which our men stumble and fall, and fail to get up, is due, in part, to denial to equal access and employment opportunities. When others appear to rise, Black men seem to descend. Consider this: the welfare reform act of the 1990s gave Black women access to job placement and training services that not only boosted their incomes but also their self-esteem. As a result, Black female unemployment rates declined. Black male unemployment, however, has been nearly double that of White males for the last 10 years. The picture is bleaker for young Black males: nearly 40 percent of them are unemployed. If the plight of the Black male is to change for the better, the federal government must institute a plan, much like the welfare reform act that uplifted so many of our women, that offers viable skill and job training so our men can go out and get jobs that pay a sustainable wage.

A government-based jobs program that focuses on the repair and overhaul of our nation’s bridges could be such a program. It could be utilized as an effort to assist Black men, teaching them skilled trades while also addressing a very important national infrastructure and public safety issue.

In the 1930s, the United States government instituted the Works Progress Administration, a program created to employ the nation’s poor during the Great Depression. Anyone who needed a job was eligible to participate. Though the jobs offered were diverse, most workers repaired or built public buildings, highways and roads. The program had a strong emphasis on family, training individuals so they could support their loved ones. A similar program, one that focuses on the nation’s bridges, would create tens of thousands of jobs and assist the largest segment of the country’s unemployed: our men. Like our nation’s bridges, Black men can no longer afford to be neglected. If something is not done to support them, they will collapse.

(Judge Greg Mathis is vice president of RainbowPUSH and a national board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.)