Resistance and Unseen Black Women’s Labor

The Exhausted Legacy of Leadership, Resistance and Unpaid Labor in American Movements 

Increases in violence and decreases in intersectional support have sapped Black women’s morale and desire to for political organizing. Where do we go from here?  image credit: Shutterstock

In the lengthy history of resistance in America, Black women have always been leaders, organizers and innovators for their movements. Adaptability and creativity are crucial in this context, as is social awareness, all of which are necessary to locate and enact appropriate changes over time. Only this demographic has proven to have the skillset and strength to continue this legacy of persistence, but even we have started to tire. Black women have been at the front of emancipation efforts and the Civil Rights era and created Black Lives Matter (BLM) as a philosophy, but the collective is exhausted, and the 2024 presidential election was the back-breaking straw for many.  

When asked about the future of resistance she said, “talk to your neighbors, who talk to their neighbors, who talk to representatives,” and stressed the need for more localized work that builds community.

Circa 2016, the most frequent and well attended demonstrations were marches — masses of citizens gathering to make a statement, yelling we wouldn’t rest until change came. But it didn’t. Rights were still stripped, people still killed in the streets. So the protestors changed instead, and By 2020, protests techniques had become more pointed. Sit-ins targeting institutions contributing to the widespread struggle became frequent even while in a pandemic because the administration’s treatment of public health had emerged as another issue. As they went on, though, these events grew increasingly dangerous for Black attendees. Cops came equipped with riot gear and white citizens drove trucks into crowds, yet those who resisted peacefully were deemed violent. 

In the summer of 2020, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, a self-described independent and impartial conflict monitoring service, began collecting information on political violence in the U.S.  The project found the amount of BLM protests met with law enforcement was double that of right-wing demonstrations and that half of these appearances had resulted in some form of violence. Notably, rallies put together by the Proud Boys and other a far-right militant groups, had a much higher tendency toward violence themselves but were consistently met with less opposition. According to the ACLED’s study “51% of BLM protests were met with physical force … compared to 33% of right-wing demonstrations and 26% of other demonstrations,” which doesn’t account for civilian attacks. Between the government and the racist public’s responses, Black people were being beaten, stalked and killed for exercising what is supposedly a constitutional right.  

Then America chose a second Trump term. When the breakdown of the November 2024 election was released, it became evident to minority groups that those Black women hoped to be allies hadn’t voted in their interest. For Black women, a group both often tasked with the care of others and has been the sustaining force of organization, this was especially disappointing. The exit poll showed Black women to have the highest concentration of Harris voters with 92%, followed by Black men at 77%. Other people of color reported significantly less Democrat votes, with Asian and Latino voters both showing around 50%, and it was a huge let down. Community organizer in Pennsylvania, Marty Nwachukwu, says she’d been apprehensive for most of the campaign: “I felt like they needed to work more for [Black women’s votes]. But in the week leading up, there was an energy around that made me hopeful, so I was devastated.” With low morale in the following days,  numerous Black women declared that their practices would be changing. Our liberation efforts have been inclusive, but the data showed these efforts aren’t being proportionally reciprocated.  

The poll reinforced the fear many Black women have that other people of color or other disenfranchised groups are unreliable in fights against oppression, and genuine, broadly understood intersectionality may be less attainable than previously thought. Compounded with exhaustion from years of work and the consistent threat of violence, this led to a drop in Black women’s involvement in events like rallies and marches in what’s being called the 92% Movement. Even within this, most Black women organizers have pivoted rather than completely stopping, finding and creating new methods in the interest of reprioritizing themselves and their immediate community. Nwachukwu echoed this sentiment, explaining that she now focuses more on economic education and canvassing while refraining from public demonstrations. When asked about the future of resistance she said, “talk to your neighbors, who talk to their neighbors, who talk to representatives,” and stressed the need for more localized work that builds community. While disheartened, she chose not to halt her mission but to reassess and continue on. The political landscape around resistance is volatile and ever changing and it seems Black women are the only entity capable of keeping up.