ATLANTA — As she recently flew on vacation to Mexico, Teja Smith laughed at the idea of joining another women’s march on Washington.
As a black woman, she simply couldn’t see herself helping to replicate the largest act of resistance against then-President Donald Trump’s first term in January 2017. Even in this year’s election, where Trump questioned his opponent’s race, held rallies containing racist slurs. and falsely claimed that black migrants in Ohio were eating residents’ pets, he not only won a second term. He became the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote, albeit by a narrow margin.
“It’s like people have spoken and this is what America looks like,” said Smith, founder of Los Angeles-based social media agency Get Social. “And there’s not much more fighting you can do without losing your own sanity.”
After Trump was declared the winner over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, many politically engaged Black women said they were so dismayed by the outcome that they were reevaluating — but not completely giving up — their enthusiasm for electoral politics and movement organizing.
Black women often shouldered much of the work to gain voting rights in their communities. They had vigorously supported the historic candidacy of Harris, who would have been the first woman of Black and South Asian descent to win the presidency.
Harris’ loss sparked a wave of black women on social media, determined to put themselves first, before giving so much to a country that has repeatedly shown its indifference to their concerns.
AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, found that 6 in 10 black women said the future of democracy in the United States was the most important factor in their vote this year, a share more higher than for other demographic groups. But now, with Trump expected to return to power in two months, some Black women are renewing calls to emphasize rest, focus on mental health and become more selective about which fights they lend their power to. ‘organization.
“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 “grassroots strategists and organizers” to the North Star, known as the most constant and reliable star in the galaxy due to its apparently fixed position in the sky. People can count on black women to lead change, Brown said, but the next four years will be different.
“It is not a herculean task that falls to us. We don’t want that title. … I have no goal of being a martyr for a nation that doesn’t care about me,” she said.
AP VoteCast paints a clear picture of the concerns of black women.
Black female voters were most likely to say democracy was the most important factor in their vote, compared to other motivators such as high prices or abortion. More than 7 in 10 Black women voters said they were “very concerned” that electing Trump would lead the nation toward authoritarianism, while only about 2 in 10 said that about Harris.
According to AP VoteCast, about 9 in 10 black female voters supported Harris in 2024, a similar proportion to those who supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Trump received the support of more than half of white voters, who made up the vast majority majority of his coalition in 2024. both years.
Like voters overall, black women were most likely to say the economy and jobs were the most important issues facing the country, with about a third saying that. But they were more likely than many other groups to say that abortion and racism were the main problems, and much less likely than other groups to say that immigration was the main problem.
Despite these concerns, which were well expressed by black women throughout the campaign, increased support from young men of color and white women helped widen Trump’s lead and secure his victory.
Politically engaged black women said they had no intention of continuing to position themselves in the vertebrae of the “backbone” of American democracy. The growing movement for black women to step down is a departure from history, where they have often been present and at the forefront of political and social change.
An early example was the women’s suffrage movement that led to the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. Black women, however, were prevented from voting for decades by Jim Crow-era literacy tests, poll taxes and laws that prevented the grandchildren of slaves from voting. Most black women could not vote until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Black women were among the organizers and among the protesters brutalized on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama during the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery that predated federal legislation. Decades later, black women were prominent organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the deaths 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 . His rhetoric on immigration, including his false claims that black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs, generated support for his plan to deport millions.
Tenita Taylor, a Black Atlanta resident who supported Trump this year, said she was initially excited about Harris’ candidacy. But after reflecting on her high grocery bills, she believes that voting for Trump in hopes of finally getting prices lowered was a form of self-prioritization.
“People say, ‘Well, that’s selfish, it was going to be better for the greater good,’” she said. “I am a mother of five children. … The things (Democrats) do affect either the rich or the poor.”
Some of Trump’s plans affect people in Olivia Gordon’s immediate community, which is why she’s had a hard time supporting the “Black Women Rest” wave. Gordon, a New York-based lawyer who supported Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Claudia de la Cruz, worries who might be left behind if the 92 percent of black women voters who supported Harris simply stopped campaigning.
“We are talking about millions of black women here. If millions of Black women take a step back, that absolutely leaves holes, but for other Black women,” she said. “I think we’re in a bubble sometimes: if it’s not in your immediate circle, maybe it doesn’t apply to you. And I sincerely implore people to understand that this is the case.
Nicole Lewis, an Alabama-based therapist who specializes in treating black women’s stress, said she is aware that removing black women from social impact movements could have consequences. But she also hopes it will force the nation to understand the consequences of not showing solidarity with black women.
“It could negatively impact things because there’s not that voice of the more empathetic group,” she said. “I also think it will give other groups an opportunity to mobilize. … I hope they show up for themselves and for everyone.
Brown said a reckoning might be exactly what the country needs, but it’s a reckoning for everyone. Black women, she said, did their job when they supported Harris en masse in hopes that they could thwart the massive changes expected under Trump.
“It’s not our decision,” she said. “I don’t feel any guilt.”
AP Poll Editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux and Associated Press Writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
Originally published:
