ATLANTA (AP) — As Teja Smith recently checked into a flight to Mexico for vacation, she laughed at the idea of joining another women’s march on Washington.
As a black woman, she simply couldn’t imagine helping to repeat the largest act of resistance against then-President Donald Trump’s first term in January 2017. Even in an election this year in which Trump questioned his opponent’s race, held rallies with racial slurs and falsely claimed that black migrants in Ohio were eating residents’ pets, he didn’t just win a second term. He was the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote, albeit by a narrow margin.
“It’s like the people have spoken and this is what America looks like,” said Smith, the Los Angeles-based founder of the social media advocacy agency Get Social. “And there’s not much left to fight without losing your mind.”
After Trump was declared the winner over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, many politically vigorous Black women said they were so dismayed by the result that they were reconsidering their enthusiasm for electoral politics and movement organizing – but not giving up entirely.
Black women often shoulder much of the burden of winning votes in their communities. They had vigorously supported the historic candidacy of Harris, who would have become the first woman of Black and South Asian descent to win the presidency.
Harris’ loss sparked a wave of black women on social media who decided to prioritize themselves before giving so much to a country that has consistently 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 critical factor in their vote this year, a higher share than other demographic groups. But now, with Trump set to return to office in two months, some Black women are renewing calls to emphasize composed, focus on mental health and be more selective about which fight they devote their organizing power to.
“America must save itself,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the national voting rights group Black Voters Matter.
She likened the presence of Black women in social justice movements as “key strategists and lead organizers” to the North Star, considered the most consistent and reliable star in the galaxy due to its seemingly fixed position in the sky. People can count on Black women to lead change, Brown said, but the next four years will look different.
“This is not a Herculean task for us. We don’t want this title. … I don’t aim to be a martyr for a nation that doesn’t care about me,” she said.
AP VoteCast paints a clear picture of Black women’s concerns.
Black women voters were most likely to say that democracy was the most critical 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 worried” that electing Trump would lead the nation toward authoritarianism, while only about 2 in 10 said the same about Harris.
About 9 in 10 Black women voters supported Harris in 2024, according to AP VoteCast, similar to the share that supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Trump received support from more than half of white voters, who made up the expansive majority of his coalition both years.
Like voters overall, black women were most likely to say the economy and jobs were the country’s most critical issues, about a third saying so. However, they were more likely than many other groups to say that abortion and racism were the main issues, and significantly less likely than other groups to say that immigration was the main issue.
Despite these concerns, which were clearly voiced by black women throughout the campaign, increasing support from newborn men of color and white women helped extend Trump’s lead and ensure his victory.
Politically vigorous black women said they had no plans to continue positioning themselves in the vortices of the “backbone” of American democracy. The growing movement for Black women to retreat is a departure from history in which they have often been present and at the forefront of political and social change.
One of the earliest examples is the women’s suffrage movement, which led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, giving women the right to vote. But black women were prevented from voting for decades due to Jim Crow-era literacy tests, poll taxes and laws that barred the grandchildren of slaves from voting. Most black women could not vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Black women were among the organizers and among the protesters abused on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama during the historic Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, which preceded 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 about race, gender or sexual orientation in schools. His rhetoric on immigration, including the false claim that black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, ate cats and dogs, boosted support for his plan to deport millions of people.
Tenita Taylor, a black Atlanta resident who supported Trump this year, said she was initially enthusiastic about Harris’ candidacy. But after thinking about how high her grocery bills were, she realizes that voting for Trump in the hopes of finally getting lower prices was a form of self-prioritization.
“People say, ‘Well that’s selfish, it should be better for the greater good,'” she said. “I am a mother of five children. … The things (Democrats) do either affect the rich or the poor.”
Some of Trump’s plans affect people close to Olivia Gordon, which is why she has had difficulty joining the Black Women Rest wave. Gordon, a New York-based lawyer who supported the Party of Socialism and Liberation’s presidential candidate Claudia de la Cruz, worries about who might be left behind if the 92% of black women voters who supported Harris simply quit would commit to the cause.
“We’re talking about millions of black women here. When millions of Black women take a step back, it absolutely leaves gaps except for other Black women,” she said. “I think we’re sometimes in a situation where if it’s not in your immediate environment, it might not apply to you. And I really implore people to understand that this is the case.”
Nicole Lewis, an Alabama-based therapist who specializes in treating stress in black women, said she is aware that black women’s withdrawal from social impact movements could have negative consequences. But she also hopes it will hold the nation accountable to understand the consequences of not standing in solidarity with black women.
“It could impact things negatively because there isn’t the voice of the most empathetic group,” she said. “I also think it will give other groups the opportunity to step up. … My hope is that they show up for themselves and everyone else.”
Brown said a reckoning may be exactly what the country needs, but it’s a reckoning for everyone else. Black women, she said, were doing their job by supporting Harris in droves, hoping they could thwart the massive changes expected under Trump.
“That’s not our assessment,” she said. “I don’t feel any guilt.”
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AP Poll Editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux and Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
