Black women are rethinking their role as America’s trusted political organizers

By: KENYA HUNTER, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Teja Smith chuckled at the idea of ​​joining another as she boarded a plane to Mexico for a recent vacation. Women’s March on Washington.

As a black woman, she could not see that she was helping to repeat the greatest act of resistance against herself. Then-President Donald Trump First term in January 2017. Even in this year’s election, Trump He questioned his opponent’s raceorganized rallies with the participation of racist slurs and falsely claimed that Black immigrants in Ohio were eating residents’ food petsHe didn’t just win a second term. He became the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote, albeit by a small margin.

“It’s like people are talking and this is what America looks like,” said Smith, founder of Los Angeles-based advocacy social media agency Get Social. “And there won’t be many fights you can do without losing your own sanity.”

After Trump was declared the winner Democratic Vice President Kamala HarrisMany Black women involved in politics said they were so dismayed by the outcome that they reevaluated — but did not completely abandon — their enthusiasm for electoral politics and movement organizing.

Black women often do much of the work of getting votes in their communities. They had strongly supported the historic candidacy of Harris, who would be the first Black and South Asian woman to win the presidency.

Harris’ loss spurred a wave of Black women on social media who decided to put themselves first before giving so much to a country that has repeatedly shown its indifference to their concerns.

AP VotingA poll of more than 120,000 voters found that 6 in 10 Black women say the most important factor for their vote this year is the future of democracy in the United States; This is a higher rate than other demographic groups. But now, with Trump returning to office in two months, some Black women are renewing calls to emphasize rest, focus on mental health and be more selective about which struggles they lend their organizing efforts to.

“America is going to have to save itself,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the national voting rights group Black Voters Matter.

She compared the presence of black women in social justice movements as “essential strategists and essential organizers” to the North Star, known as the most consistent and reliable star in the galaxy due to its seemingly fixed position in the sky. Brown said people can trust Black women to lead change, but the next four years will look different.

“This is not a very difficult task for us. We do not want this title. … I have no goal of becoming a martyr for a nation that does not care about me at all,” he said.

AP VoteCast paints a clear picture of Black women’s concerns.

Black female voters were more likely to say democracy was the single most important factor influencing their vote, compared to other motivators such as high prices or abortion. While more than 7 in 10 black female voters said they were “very concerned” that Trump’s election would slide the country into authoritarianism, only 2 in 10 said this about Harris.

Nearly 9 in 10 black female voters supported Harris in 2024, according to AP VoteCast; This is similar to the share supporting Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Trump won the support of more than half of white voters, who make up the vast majority of his coalition. every two years.

Like voters overall, Black women are most likely to say the economy and employment are the most important issues facing the country, with about a third saying so. But they were more likely than most other groups to say abortion and racism were the most important issues; They were much less likely than other groups to say that immigration was the most important issue.

Despite these concerns, which were well voiced by Black women throughout the campaign, support from women of color has increased. young men of color and white women helped expand Trump’s lead and ensure his victory.

Black women involved in political activities said they do not plan to continue positioning themselves at the backbone of the “backbone” of America’s democracy. The growing movement encouraging black women to retreat is a shift from history in which they were often present and at the forefront of political and social change.

One of the earliest examples is the women’s suffrage movement, which led to its ratification in 1920. 19th Amendment to the ConstitutionIt was the law that gave women the right to vote. But black women were prevented from voting for decades by Jim Crow-era literacy tests, poll taxes and laws that barred descendants of slaves from voting. Most black women could not vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Black women were among the organizers and were counted among the marchers brutalized on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama. The historic march in 1965 Preceding federal legislation from Selma to Montgomery. Decades later, Black women were leading organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killings of Black Americans at the hands of police and vigilantes.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump called for using federal money to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government programs and discussions of race, gender or sexual orientation in schools. Including his discourses on immigration false claims He gained support for his plan when he said Black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, ate cats and dogs. Deporting millions of people.