100 Days of Trump: A Resurgent Black Resistance

Given his first time period, President Donald Trump’s second go-round within the White Home was anticipated to be chaotic. With Republican majorities in each homes of Congress — and the Supreme Court docket’s conservative supermajority — the hard-right, war-on-woke agenda he promised to unleash was anticipated to pressure the nation’s political guardrails, if not smash by them. 

However few specialists anticipated Trump’s sweeping, rapid-fire assaults on establishments, insurance policies, and legal guidelines that profit or defend Black America to go this far, this quick. And the harm he’s carried out by 139 govt orders — and counting — in simply 100 days, they are saying, may take many years to repair.

Take into account: in simply over 14 weeks since taking the oath of workplace for a second time, Trump has gutted the Division of Schooling, which ensures equal entry to training for Black youngsters; slashed tens of hundreds of federal jobs, which helped construct the Black center class; and fired a highly-decorated normal and storied fighter pilot who was simply the second Black chairman within the historical past of the Joint Chiefs of Employees. The bedrock of our civil rights isn’t secure, both. Trump is difficult the 14th Modification in court docket and signed an govt order rolling again protections enshrined within the Civil Rights Act of 1965. 

The president threatened to whitewash the Smithsonian Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition. He hollowed out the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, emptying workplaces that tracked minority well being. He canceled trainer coaching grants for applications that touched on race.

That’s only a few of Trump’s actions in 100 days. He nonetheless has three years, 265 days to go.

However Black America has all the time identified complacency just isn’t an possibility. 

On Inauguration Day, we at Phrase In Black revealed insights from a few of Black America’s greatest thinkers, outlining methods to withstand what they anticipated was coming. They cautioned Black Individuals towards hopelessness and despair, and inspired motion every time potential.

Now that we’re three-plus months into Trump 2.0, — and after seeing anti-Trump rallies, federal courts pushing again towards his agenda, and inexperienced shoots of a budding political opposition — we thought it will be helpful to take inventory of the scenario by speaking to our preliminary group of thought leaders, in addition to some new voices doing the work in the neighborhood. Taking motion, they are saying, continues to be sound recommendation. However the necessity to do it, they add, is way extra pressing. Their responses have been edited for size and readability. 

Christopher Bouzy 

Tech EntrepreneurFounder and CEO of Spoutible and Bot Sentinel 

The pace at which the chaos ensued stunned me. I didn’t assume they’d put tariffs on imports so rapidly with out doing the due diligence to know how this may have an effect on not solely markets, however in the end the financial system. They’re focusing on migrants, going after people by way of attempting to deport them — and being profitable. It simply looks as if, the hell with the rule of regulation, the hell with due course of. Prior to now, we’ve seen Trump insult judges when he’s not pleased a couple of ruling, however that is totally different. Now he’s focusing on judges. 

We have to defend ourselves. What I imply by that’s, have a passport. Have a Plan B if issues actually go south. I do know everybody can’t, if want be, relocate to a different nation — and I’ve by no means considered leaving America earlier than, even in Trump’s first administration. However this feels a heck of loads totally different than what we’ve seen up to now.

Second, be extra vocal — be on the market, do all of the issues that needed to be carried out in the course of the civil rights period. We’re going to have to drag out that playbook, mud it off, replace it, and do these essential issues that should be carried out. A part of that’s protesting. I do know some individuals are uninterested in protesting, however you’ll be able to’t sit again and permit this. What we’re witnessing proper now could be a rollback of all of the features that we’ve made over the past 70 years. So now we have to withstand. 

Dr. Bahia Cross (Overton)

Educator and Government Director, Black Mum or dad Initiative

My preliminary response has been frustration and disappointment, however not shock. The focusing on of the Smithsonian’s lunch counter exhibit — attempting to erase our combat for human dignity — exhibits precisely what’s at stake. If they will erase our historical past, they will erase our youngsters’s future, too. 

They’ve minimize initiatives that offered internship alternatives for Black college students, particularly, and referred to as them divisive. However these applications weren’t divisive — they existed to right the division and exclusion already constructed into the system. Now, they’re being dismantled underneath the false declare of equity. It’s like blaming the remedy for the illness.

They’re coming for our historical past, our establishments, and our youngsters’s desires. However we all know easy methods to survive this — by remembering our value, reclaiming our energy, and constructing the tutorial future our ancestors fought for.

Now we have to teach our personal youngsters, and we are able to’t be lazy about it. Now we have to uplift Black companies, inform our personal tales, and train our youngsters that their value isn’t decided by programs designed to exclude them. Our survival has by no means been passive — and neither is our training.

Tashawna Gill

Michigan State Lead, Supermajority

Let’s be actual clear: Black people don’t have the luxurious of shock anymore. Nothing in regards to the first 100 days of this second Trump administration is stunning, except you’ve been selecting consolation over reality. From day one, we’ve seen a full-scale assault on our rights, our our bodies, our histories, and our futures. They’re not hiding it, so now just isn’t the time for us to be meek. 

In Michigan, we’re watching working-class Black communities get hit arduous. Auto employees and repair employees, a lot of them Black, are being squeezed from each angle, whereas the wealthy get richer. Trump’s insurance policies are a direct assault on Black labor and financial energy. That’s not simply coverage failure, that’s intentional sabotage.

What has stunned me? What number of of our so-called allies are nonetheless asking what they need to “do.” When you’re nonetheless asking that, you’re a part of the issue. What we’d like now isn’t extra panels or assume items; we’d like organized, unapologetic motion.

When you’re Black in America proper now, resistance means organizing and constructing grassroots energy that outlives anybody presidency. And it means being unbothered by whether or not our resistance makes anybody snug. As a result of our liberation has by no means come from asking properly.

Monica Delores Hooks

Chief Expertise Officer, Russell Innovation Heart for Black Enterprise

The primary 100 days of this second Trump administration have introduced with them a heavy readability. For Black entrepreneurs, particularly these constructing in and for our personal communities, the message is evident: We’re going to must do much more with even much less.

On the Russell Innovation Heart for Entrepreneurs in Atlanta, we work with a whole lot of Black founders who’re innovators, job creators, and tradition shapers. What we’re seeing proper now isn’t new, however it’s sharper. Entry to capital is drying up even additional. Federal applications that have been already arduous to faucet into have gotten much more inaccessible. 

However right here’s the factor: Black entrepreneurs have by no means been strangers to problem. What’s taking place now could be a compelled refocus. Our enterprise leaders are re-strategizing, doubling down on community-driven help programs, and discovering artistic methods to remain afloat — as a result of we’ve all the time needed to.

What’s totally different this time is the urgency. There’s no ready for a lifeline. We’re seeing a renewed give attention to possession, on cooperative fashions, on tech innovation grounded in cultural relevance. And we’re additionally seeing extra Black founders saying, “Now we have to work as a collective, as a result of nobody is coming to avoid wasting us. We’re our personal heroes.”

Resisting on this second doesn’t all the time appear like marching. Typically, it seems to be like signing a lease, launching a brand new product, coming collectively for vital solutions-driven conversations, or mentoring the subsequent entrepreneur in line. 

Black entrepreneurs perceive the political local weather is shifting towards them, however they’re shifting too. And so they’re not going wherever.

Fedrick Ingram

Secretary-Treasurer, American Federation of Academics

President Trump and his billionaire allies have given us a lot to fret about within the first 100 days — the lawlessness, the merciless deportations, attacking training, and whitewashing our historical past — so I perceive when individuals really feel hopeless and burned out.

The explanation I don’t despair is as a result of I keep in mind that at each second in American historical past, Black people have created methods for survival. And each technique facilities round one thought: neighborhood. 

The one approach out of that is collectively, whether or not that’s by a labor union, neighborhood teams, your faculty, or your church — we should prioritize after which arrange. The proof of idea is you. You’re right here proper now, nonetheless surviving and thriving when each plot and plan was shaped towards your existence, not to mention success. At present isn’t any totally different, and neither is tomorrow. If you wish to push again with objective, be part of arms.

Alexis McGill Johnson

President and CEO, Deliberate Parenthood Motion Fund

Day by day, Black people are on the frontline of combating tyranny. We all the time have been. The identical tyranny that just lately codified misogyny and white supremacy in 19 states by abortion bans — as a result of Black girls all the time bear the brunt of reproductive restrictions — is identical tyranny that took the lives of ladies like Amber Thurman and Candi Miller. It’s the identical tyranny that put Brittany Watts in jail for a miscarriage. It’s the identical tyranny that’s attempting to remove well being care from thousands and thousands of Individuals by gutting Medicaid, firing federal well being care employees, and rescinding grants from researchers learning maternal well being outcomes, and withholding funding from Deliberate Parenthood well being facilities as a result of they’ve the audacity to imagine that nobody ought to have a unique well being consequence due to their race or zip code.

The very first thing authoritarian leaders do once they come into energy is assault reproductive freedom — it’s a surefire option to prohibit the lives of half the inhabitants. However when fascism strikes by a racialized lens, as is going on right here within the US, all of it however assures that probably the most marginalized will bear the brunt of the hurt. That’s the story of President Trump’s first time period in workplace, not simply the primary 100 days, however the prologue to the second 100 days and past.

Black resistance is care. Day by day at Deliberate Parenthood, we present up for the individuals we serve — navigators coordinate journey for sufferers to get out of state care and the suppliers and medical assistants put together to obtain them on the opposite finish. Organizers arrange. Attorneys file fits. Leaders lead. Supporters help. Typically it’s arduous to note that merely doing the work is the antidote to chaos; or to see how highly effective on a regular basis resistance is amidst the exhaustion.

However once I stroll the frontlines, I see the steely dedication in our eyes. I see the enjoyment and the creativity, and the affirmation of our spirit. I see the hope, the compassion, and the fierce realness that solely a Black auntie can convey to a troublesome dialog. I see all of it inside and out of doors of Deliberate Parenthood. Locally, within the abortion funds, within the motion leaders, and in halls of Congress. We’re doing and defending the work we’re referred to as right here to do.

Dr. Religion Ohuoba 

OB-GYN, Creator, Coach, and Speaker

I’ve been stunned by the quite a few cuts made, in such a brief period of time, to science- and health-based federal applications. The cancellation of crucial [medical] coaching and education schemes for faculty {and professional} college students will discourage prime expertise and detour coaching of future researchers and scientists. Such applications embrace the Summer season Alternatives to Advance Analysis and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being Summer season Internship Program.

Sadly, I used to be not stunned by the chief orders that have been targeted on range, fairness, and inclusion. The nation’s historical past of racism will all the time should be addressed and can’t be ignored. Establishments and organizations who really perceive and are dedicated to options will proceed to do the work in some capability. For now, the [negative] branding of DEI has been solidified within the first 100 days. 

I might proceed to emphasize the significance of ladies prioritizing their well being, together with stress administration throughout these extremely demanding instances. The one factor that I might add is to contemplate working towards a stress administration method referred to as “Field Respiratory” that’s used to create calm and focus. In fact, it’s all the time greatest to seek the advice of your doctor previous to using using any stress administration method.

Dr. Artika Tyner

Founder, Planting Individuals Rising Justice Institute

Root our resistance in literacy. Make investments our time, expertise, and treasure in rising literacy within the Black neighborhood by a mixture of engagement and advocacy methods. The political local weather underneath Trump has been marked by efforts to erase the educating of Black historical past, prohibit discussions on systemic racism, and ban books that heart Black voices. Falling behind in literacy at this crucial stage creates obstacles to tutorial achievement and perpetuates cycles of oppression. By specializing in bettering our literacy outcomes, we are able to create new pipelines to success. 

In a time when anti-Black insurance policies and rhetoric are on the rise, grassroots efforts are simply as vital. Organizations like our literacy nonprofit, the Planting Individuals Rising Justice Institute, present a lifeline in combating Black instructional censorship. Organizing and mobilizing can be crucial to cultivating Black instructional resistance — and literacy is central to the combat for justice.

I might take a look at not what [Trump] has carried out, however what he hasn’t. We all know that 80% of mind improvement occurs within the first few years of life, however there’s been no dedication to early literacy. In the meantime, 4 out of 10 fourth graders within the U.S. nonetheless can’t learn. We want nationwide funding, however we additionally want Saturday faculties, music academies, and neighborhood areas the place Black youngsters can be taught and thrive. 

I’ve sat down with mates — docs, enterprise house owners — and requested, “What do you could have in your arms to offer?” It’s time to collect our sources and ask how we serve our individuals, collectively. This isn’t an either-or; it’s each. Group engagement and nationwide coverage should transfer hand in hand. 

That’s what the previous 100 days have proven us. Our collective energy just isn’t elective — it’s mandatory for survival.  You might be outraged, otherwise you might be complacent — however neither of these alone will transfer us ahead. Now could be the time to behave.