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‘WE DON’T HAVE AN OPTION NOT TO FIGHT’: HOW BLACK WOMEN ARE
RESISTING NOW  
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Errin Haines
April 17, 2025
The 19th
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_ Black women are rejecting narratives that suggest their lack of
visibility since November 5 translates into inaction. _

Black women supporters react as Democratic presidential nominee, U.S.
Vice President Kamala Harris concedes the election during a speech at
Howard University on November 6, 2024 in Washington, DC, (Gabriele
Holtermann/Sipa USA/AP Images)

 

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
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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
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“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
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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
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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 
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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.

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
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24 hours and has since evolved into a 10-city tour
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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.”

_This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by
Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today
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early access to her analysis._

_The 19th was founded in 2020 by Emily Ramshaw and Amanda Zamora,
longtime journalists who believed the news was not representative
enough.  Our goal is to empower women and LGBTQ+ people
— particularly those from underrepresented communities — with
the information, resources and tools they need to be equal
participants in our democracy. _

* Black Women
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* Popular Resistance
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* Trump Administration
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