Monica Wilson was so devastated by the result of the 2024 presidential election, she couldn’t even move the day after. She had cast her ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris but became disillusioned when she learned a plurality of Americans ultimately chose Donald Trump.
“I actually was one of those Black women that said, ‘To hell with it. You do what you want. It’s your issue. You created it,’” Wilson, who serves as a Parma, Ohio, city councilwoman, recalled in a phone interview.
Wilson wasn’t alone in her anger. Black voters carried the Democratic vote in 2024, voting for Harris at 83%, split between 89% of Black women and 75% of Black men, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center report. When Harris lost to Trump, members of those majorities declared that they would not participate in any and all anti-Trump protests. But just under six months into Trump’s presidency, that declaration hasn’t exactly translated to inaction.
In Wilson’s case, that meant having a “change of heart” just three months in.
“Somewhere around March or so, I said I need to start participating because this is my life, and it is the life of my legacies — my nieces and nephews — and it’s my country,” said Wilson, who added that attending the nationwide “Hands Off” protest in early April made her come out of her post-election slump.
Harris’ ascension to the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket last summer reenergized die-hard Black Democrats in ways unseen since former President Barack Obama’s 2008 bid, with fundraising calls raking in millions of dollars for Harris’ fledgling campaign in the weeks immediately after then–President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. That momentum, coupled with the hope that the country would put its first Black and South Asian woman in the Oval Office, reinvigorated Black voters in a moment when it felt like the nation’s future again hung in the balance — and that made Harris’ loss that much more crushing a betrayal.
In the days post-election, social media was flooded with statements from Black users, particularly Black women, that they would be sitting out of protests and marches against the Trump administration. They’d done their part by turning out to vote and organizing for democracy, many said, and it would be on everyone else to dig themselves out of the inevitable social, economic and political hole Trump 2.0 would bring.
“I want people to understand how angry Black women are, and quite honestly, Black men,” Wilson said, voicing frustration over the narrative that Black men shifted toward Trump. (Pew’s post-election data indicates that Trump’s support among Black voters nearly doubled between 2024 and 2020, going from 8% to 15%).
“We have been out here, for the 20th and 19th centuries, leading the protest to get America to live and fulfill its promise, and we just got the wind knocked out of us this last election,” she added. “The majority have, if not more, responsibility to fight back because they brought this down upon us. They voted for this man, and they created the institutions of racism, they have cultivated the institution of prejudices and inequality, and they have to take responsibility for that.”
That commitment to sitting out — abstaining from anti-Trump demonstrations in favor of staying home — was apparent in the “Hands Off” protests against the administration. Reports noted that crowds were largely made up of older white people, pointing to photos from the actions across the country as evidence. That was in contrast with the diverse, Black-led protests that erupted in 2020 and galvanized thousands of Americans against police brutality and anti-Black racism.
Brandon Jessup, deputy director of data analytics and movement technology at State Voices, has witnessed that disillusionment among Black Americans firsthand. While door-knocking and doing outreach for the nonpartisan civic engagement network, State Voices organizers have faced a higher level of scrutiny from Black communities, he said in a phone interview.
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Many are still interested in taking to the streets, as with the “No Kings” demonstrations in June. But many others, Jessup said, are skeptical of how they can continue to voice their opposition to the current administration when it’s upending their lives; they’re bearing the brunt of Trump’s executive actions and legislation targeting diversity, equity and inclusion, Medicaid and other social services as well as navigating the disappointment of decades of fighting to only obtain marginal reform.
“Incremental change — that’s almost water torture, especially when our communities desire radical change, not extreme change,” Jessup told Salon. “What we’re getting from this current administration is extremism. We wanted radical change. We wanted a change that made sure that we took care of all, not less.”
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, told Salon that she sees many Black women still grappling with that “rejection,” both in terms of Harris’ candidacy and the fact that some members of their communities voted for Trump “even at the peril of their own family.” Still, Davis Gates argued, it’s not clear that Black people could abstain even if they wanted to.
“One of the things that popular discourse often misses is that being Black is a political strategy within itself,” she told Salon. “From the time that we wake up to the time that we go to sleep, in the way that we have to navigate society at our jobs, in our schools, in our neighborhood, even a trip to the grocery store … I don’t think we ever truly sit out of any protest.”
Marcus Anthony Hunter, professor of sociology and African American Studies at UCLA, echoed that sentiment. Black people, he added, also must weigh the risk of engaging in demonstrations and the potential for violent encounters with law enforcement against their safety and livelihoods.
“There’s a calculation that is worth considering, and it sometimes means people throw that out the window and just jump out there,” said Hunter, who coined the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in 2012 before it ballooned into a movement. “But just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not caring, and that they don’t care and that they’re not doing things that raise the alarms in their communities in ways that might be less seen or less visible, but are still very much present.”
Such is the case for Meredith Turner, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman and 2024 Ohio delegate at the Democratic National Convention. She previously told Salon that, following Harris’ loss, she would not be participating in any protests or marches against the then-incoming president for the foreseeable future. Months later, she said she remains steadfast in that commitment.
“I feel like the coalition that I belong to — we’re tired. We’re tired. It’s OK for us to sit back and watch others strategize and take action,” Turner said. She added that she’s “very comfortable” with Trump supporters and Americans who didn’t vote “having to deal with the consequences of their decisions.”
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But choosing to sit out doesn’t mean disengaging from the fight for democracy altogether. Turner said she’s focused on lobbying for change at the state and local levels, advocating for her constituents and participating in letter-writing campaigns appealing to state and federal Ohio officials to challenge cuts to the safety net.
“I may not be marching in the street, but I’m fully engaged where I believe I can make the most impact,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, she said she and others are turning inward to their communities to partner with local organizations, brainstorm ways to fill the gaps, cultivate Black leadership and prioritize Black joy.
“We are dealing with this in a totally different way,” Turner said. “We are having cookouts. We got our boots on the ground. We’re line dancing. We’re going about our daily life. We’re having cotillions. We’re having graduation parties. We’re trying to get the next generation engaged because we just may not be able to do anything right now.”
Black Americans’ resistance to Trump’s policies has also taken the form of boycotts and investing more in Black-owned and pro-DEI businesses. A handful of Black-led groups, spearheaded by Atlanta-based Pastor Jamal Bryant, launched a boycott of Target after the retailer announced in January that it would be sunsetting a program it started after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 aimed at helping Black employees develop their careers, boost Black-owned businesses and improve Black shoppers’ experiences. The change followed Trump’s issuance of an executive order targeting DEI in the federal government and encouraging rollbacks in the private sector.
Meanwhile, Costco’s renewed commitment to DEI in the face of Trump’s policies led Rev. Al Sharpton to orchestrate a buy-in at the Washington state wholesaler with more than 100 members of the National Action Network.
While it’s unclear the exact impact the boycott has had, so far this year Target’s foot traffic has slowed, stock prices have plunged and net quarterly sales have decreased compared to 2024 numbers. At the same time, Black and Hispanic households appeared to be pulling back visits at a disproportionately high rate in the weeks following Target’s DEI rollback, according to a March Numerator report. In contrast, the report said, Costco “attracted many of these same consumers” and saw a 7.7 million increase in visits over a four-week period that ended Feb. 9.
Yusuf Johnson counted himself among those new Costco visitors this year, going so far as to purchase a membership and tell his store’s staff his reasons for doing so. While the Florida-based IT project manager said he was never one for participating in demonstrations, in part, due to the danger of police encounters that Black men face, he has always tried to resist through spreading knowledge in blogs, social media posts and more recently, creating YouTube videos.
“I think if you’re not going to be on the streets, you should be ridiculously vocal,” Johnson said, arguing that actions without explanations are “not good enough.” He also said he worries that online calls to “sit out” will lead to more people disengaging from resistance and politics altogether in favor of placing the onus squarely on white Americans. Maybe abstaining while calling on white people to get involved can work, he added. “But if it turns into people just simply shutting down from any form of gaining knowledge, … [of] current events, then I think it’s going to be damaging to us.”
Johnson’s longtime friend, Angelina Hamilton Steiner, on the other hand, occupies something of a middle ground. The founder of Madison Court Community Coalition, a grassroots youth engagement organization in Lakewood, Ohio, told Salon she understands and respects Black Americans’ decision to pull back from the frontlines of activism, having come out of the election feeling “dejected” herself. Still, she said, she knew she had to do something.
“I am still wanting to keep fighting. I’m not wanting to give up hope because, for me, this is just as much my country as it is their country,” she said.
Her solution has been to focus on the local level and work to alleviate the manifestations of federal policies on everyday people. She applied to be appointed to the vacant seat on the Lakewood, Ohio, city council and was selected to fill the role in January. She’s also taken part in a few Cleveland-area protests, though she said she’s engaging in demonstrations at a much slower pace than she had before the election.
How to approach resistance going forward, she said, is a decision that every Black American needs to make for themselves, regardless of what others think.
“I think this is on the white collective to get out there and save your country and be at these protests and put your bodies out there on the front line,” Hamilton Steiner added. “Our bodies have been on the frontline since this country was founded and have founded this country.”
