Black Women Call a Recess

After Trump was declared the winner over Vice President Kamala Harris, many politically engaged black women said they were so dismayed by the outcome that they were reassessing—but not wholly abandoning—their enthusiasm for electoral politics and movement organizing.

In January 2018, the then-president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, called on white women to do more to “save this country from itself,” crediting women of color with many of the recent political victories.

The momentum from 2017’s Women’s March fueled protests against the Muslim Ban and inspired activists to demand accountability from Congress, in Hollywood, and the workplace, Richards said at the Women’s March #PowertothePolls rally in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“All across the country, the Women’s March inspired doctors and teachers and mothers to become activists and organizers and, yes, candidates for office,” Richards said. “And from Virginia to Alabama and to last week in Wisconsin, women have beaten the odds to elect our own to office. … Women of color, transgender women, rural and urban women.”

Richards credited women of color with many of these successes. “These victories were led and made possible by women of color,” Richards said. She urged white women to join forces with women of color to change the nation.

“So, white women, listen up. We’ve got to do better. … It is not up to women of color to save this country from itself. That’s on all of us. That’s on all of us,” said Richards. “The good news is when we are in full on sisterhood, women are the most powerful, political force in America,” she said.

In the presidential election this year, white women voters did not heed Cecile Richards’ call, as more of them voted for Trump than Kamala Harris. They matched their proportion voting for Trump in 2016 (53%) when much less was known about him.

As she checked in for a recent flight to Mexico for a vacation, Teja Smith, the Los Angeles-based African American founder of the advocacy social media agency Get Social, expressed little interest in helping to replicate another Large Women’s March on Washington, as was done after Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Not even in the election this year, where Trump questioned his opponent’s race, held rallies featuring racist insults, and falsely claimed black migrants in Ohio were eating their neighbors’ pets. He did not just win a second term. He became the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote, although by a small margin.

Harris’ loss spurred a wave of Black women across social media resolving to prioritize themselves before giving so much to a country that over and over has 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 single most important factor for their vote this year, a higher share than for other demographic groups. But now, with Trump set to return to office in two months, some Black women are renewing calls to emphasize rest, focus on mental health, and become more selective about what fight they lend their organizing power to.

“America is going to have to save herself,” said LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of the national voting rights group Black Voters Matter. “That’s not a herculean task that’s for us. We don’t want that title. … I have no goals to be a martyr for a nation that cares nothing about me.”