When Elizabeth Gore received an email two years ago informing her that America First Legal (AFL) was bringing a class-action lawsuit against her company, Hello Alice, she thought it was spam.
AFL is a conservative activist group that was cofounded in 2021 by Stephen Miller, one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies and a deputy chief of staff in Trump’s second term. According to its website, AFL exists to “oppose lawless government overreach and fight to restore the rule of law in the United States.”
Gore couldn’t fathom why Miller’s organization would take an interest in her company, a business-to-business platform that serves mom-and-pop companies, offering them, for example, a data-backed assessment of their financial fitness, and potential access to a Hello Alice credit card and other forms of capital. She sees Hello Alice as part of a patchwork of companies, government agencies, and nonprofits safeguarding one of the main paths to the American Dream itself.
But the message wasn’t spam. America First Legal alleged that when Hello Alice made a $25,000 grant available to Black-owned commercial vehicle businesses, it violated a Civil Rights Act law from 1866 that bans racial discrimination in contracts.
