‘We don’t have an option not to fight’: How Black women are resisting

< This story was originally reported by Errin Haines of The 19th. Meet Errin and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

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Where are the 92 percent?

That has been a persistent question since the presidential election, referring to the Black women who overwhelmingly organized and voted for Kamala Harris and then seemingly went dark after November 5. For many of them — who have largely rejected Donald Trump in his three campaigns for president — Harris’ loss felt like a betrayal, and another signal of disrespect from a democracy they have long worked hard to shape.

In the early days of the Trump administration, there have been feelings of anger, resolve, resignation and exhaustion among Black women and many other Americans frustrated with the president’s actions and the current political climate. Earlier this month, millions of protesters took to the streets in cities across the country to make their voices heard as Trump and ally Elon Musk have sought to dramatically remake the federal government, with consequences for real Americans.

The crowds were overwhelmingly White, not the typical makeup of other recent protest movements. Many of the Black women who have been among the leaders of such movements in the past decade, were noticeably — and intentionally — absent.

The Black women I talk to said they are being strategic, pragmatic and creative about what their resistance looks like now, preparing for a long fight ahead, and rejecting narratives that suggest their lack of visibility in this moment translates into inaction.

“People are paying more attention to what Black women are doing because of the impact we had in the election,” said Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “We pointed people in the right direction and they did not follow. We may be out of sight to some people, but we’re not checked out by any stretch. The crisis in America is certainly not out of our minds.”

Within weeks of the election, a meme began to circulate of a group of Black women sitting on the roof of a building, sipping their beverages and watching the country burn. The message: Black women would do nothing to help if the democracy they’d tried to save went up in flames.

This month, another image quickly gained traction during the “Hands Off” protests: a photograph of White marchers filing past a restaurant while Black people having brunch looked on, unbothered.

While the idea that Black women deserve rest is showing up in organic social media content, it’s also part of a campaign of misinformation, said Esosa Osa, founder of Onyx Impact, a nonprofit dedicated to researching Black online communities and fighting harmful information that targets Black voters. Emphasizing Black women talking about rest can discourage others in this key Democratic voting bloc from engaging civically.

“We are seeing bad actors trying to influence and suppress Black engagement in a really targeted and hostile way,” Osa said. “We should be cautious of any narrative that’s just, ‘Black women won’t turn out or won’t engage civically.’ Those are the types of narratives that folks working against Black power would want to uplift and amplify. Just because you don’t see your Black friend at a protest doesn’t mean we’re not working or being strategic.”

A lot of that strategy is happening behind the scenes, said Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality” and is a leading legal and civil rights scholar at UCLA and Columbia Law School. Crenshaw added that she has been skeptical of much of what she has seen online about Black women “resting.”

“I see a contrast between what’s being given to me on social media and what I’m seeing in the trenches,” Crenshaw said. “Are we tired? Yes. Are we heartbroken? Absolutely. Are we willing to roll over and let this … happen to us without hearing from us? I’m not seeing that, not in the circles I talk to. We don’t have an option not to fight.”

Nelson is among the Black women in the fight now, tapping into LDF’s long history of legal activism to make American democracy live up to its values. The group was among several civil rights organizations that filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging Trump’s executive order calling for sweeping election changes.

Fatima Goss Graves, head of the National Women’s Law Center, said Black women are leading a lot of the strategy in this time, pointing to colleagues like Alexis McGill Johnson of Planned Parenthood; Melanie Campbell of the Black Women’s Roundtable, a network focused on the political and economic power of Black women; and SEIU President April Verrett. In February, Graves’ organization, a nonprofit advancing gender justice, filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s executive orders that take aim at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Asked about this month’s protests, Graves said she was not surprised to see White Americans — who make up the majority of the federal workforce — as the main participants.

“The folks who usually come to the streets first are the ones who see the direct impact,” Graves pointed out. “You haven’t always seen groups like that in the streets. I actually feel good about Black women’s leadership at this time. They understand the assignment fully.”

And there are others, focused on building community, messaging to counteract negative narratives and protesting with the power of their purses.

Attendees for a rally in Detroit for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign wait for her to speak on Aug. 7, 2024 | Anna Liz Nichols

In the days leading up to Trump’s joint address to Congress, an idea was launched by Black activists, organizers and strategists including Angela Rye, Leah Daughtry and Tamika Mallory to provide an alternative to the president’s speech: a marathon of online programming aimed at educating and empowering Black Americans impacted by the new administration.

“State of the People” streamed for 24 hours and has since evolved into a 10-city tour starting April 26 in Atlanta that will include mutual aid, political education and town halls.

“We have not stopped; we are focused on not just surviving, but making sure we don’t lose ground on what we have achieved as a people in this country,” said Campbell, one of the organizers of the State of the People effort. “This is designed to build a larger, intergenerational movement, showing the potential of long-term, sustained organizing on the ground and online.”

During the Lenten season, Jamal Bryant, pastor of the Atlanta-based mega congregation New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, called for a 40-day boycott of Target after the retailer announced it would scale back its DEI initiatives. The campaign came in the wake of the Trump administration’s executive orders calling for an end to such programs, which the president referred to as “radical and wasteful.” Black consumers, many of them women, make up nearly 9 percent of Target shoppers. While the full impact of the boycott is unclear, the company’s stock price has dropped, foot traffic to stores has slowed significantly and net quarterly sales decreased as a result.

Last month, 100 women did a “buy-in” at a Washington, D.C.-area Costco to show support for the store’s commitment to DEI as part of an annual summit organized by the Black Women’s Roundtable. Campbell said the gathering also included a day on Capitol Hill hosted by Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blount Rochester — the nation’s two Black women senators — focused on federal budget priorities including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Campbell said she has been part of different organizing efforts since the election and strategizing around protecting Black women’s leadership in this moment.

“Part of resistance is self-care,” Campbell said. “That does not have anything to do with not fighting, because we are. We said we were going to take some rest after November 5, but there was never any notion that we weren’t going to fight for our freedom in this country.”

Resistance to the Trump administration, including for Black women, is still taking shape. Campbell said she invites allies whom she felt left down by after the election to step up now. What is clear in this unprecedented moment is that it will not look like it has looked before.

Nelson said Black women’s roles now must be “very targeted, very pinpointed, because we are in a crisis unlike anything we have seen in modern history for Black women.”

“We’re taking it very seriously,” Nelson said. “To the extent people sense silence or reserve, those energies are being put to good use, just in a quiet way.”

When the moment is right, Graves predicted that Black women could also take their protest to the streets.

“That’s part of being a strategist,” she said. “We’ll know when it’s time for us to engage, and that’s OK.”