As racial and political tensions continue to plague Black America, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness. When you feel directionless, remember to call upon the ancestors—they’ve navigated these challenges before. From voter suppression to environmental racism, Black communities have fought these battles for generations. Let’s explore how those who came before us found their strength and chose to resist oppression.
Suggested Reading
Modern Day Voter Suppression
Within the pass few decades, states all over America have silently imposed barriers which make voting for Black Americans and other minority group harder. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting early voting times, restricting registration and purging voter rolls too aggressively” are all examples of voter suppression in modern day history, 60 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As of March, lawmakers in 47 states introduced over 360 bills to restrict voting access, CNN reported. But just because this is happening in 2025 doesn’t mean it’s the first time Black folks have had to deal with this.
How Black Folks Resisted Voter Suppression
During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Black people resisted all voter suppression efforts and demanded change. This led to the Freedom Summer, when Black and White college students registered hundreds of voters in Mississippi. With the work of folks like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.
Attacks at HBCUs
In the first days after far-right conservative Charlie Kirk was brutally killed, at least a dozen historically Black universities and colleges (HBCUs) were threatened with violence. The FBI has since determined these threats were “not credible,” but they still led to lockdowns, class cancellations and heightened security measures on multiple campuses, the Hilltop reported.
“HBCUs getting threats after a white nationalist was killed is very on the nose,” Alabama State University sophomore Sam Barnett told the outlet. “Threats will continue to come strictly because a lot of people are upset. People who are Republicans or conservatives are very upset because they feel like this is an attack on them.”
How We Rebuilt Our HBCUs
HBCUs are some of the leading institutions producing the most successful Black scholars throughout history. Because of this, they are often targeted with violence during times of racial tension in the country. The 1865 arson of Wilberforce University in Greene County, Ohio. was devastating for many Black students at the end of the Civil War. Days after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, a fire destroyed some of the buildings at the HBCU. According to The New York Times, the damages totaled $50,000.
Dozens of HBCUs have been targeted with violence in the past, but most times, Black communities are able to regroup and rebuild, proving that Black schools are here to stay and that Black students have the right to education.
Black folks Not Hired/ Fired Because of Race
Black folks are losing their jobs at history speed since Trump came back ino office. According to the most recent jobs report from the Labor Department, Black Americans make up 7.2 percent jobless Americans, which is above the national average of 4.2 percent. They just so happen to also be concentrated in federal departments experiencing the most job cuts. “This has been a place where Black people are disproportionately more likely to get jobs – better jobs, well-paying jobs,” economist Ajilore continued to USA Today.
Black people make up around 18 percent of the current federal workforce, according to a May National Women’s Law Center report. Trump’s cuts to several federal agencies like USAID, FEMA and the Department of Education means more Black Americans are getting laid off in record numbers. Black workers are also still reeling from Trump’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusivity) push.
Building Black Wall Street
In many cases where Black folks were fired, not hired or professionally targeted, they created their own jobs to serve their own communities. This led to the building of Black towns like Tulsa, Okla.– Black Wall Street— and Rosewood in Florida. Of course, we now know these cities were burned to the ground by racist white folks afraid that Black people would some day even the economic playground with them. Despite that, all over the nation during Jim Crow, Black folks survived by created their own.
Segregated Schools
Many would be surprised to know U.S. schools are still highly segregated. According to a 2022 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the American student body is more diverse than ever before. Still, public schools remain highly segregated by race.
The report found about 18.5 million students attend schools where they are the majority. Fourteen percent of students in 2020 attended schools where almost all of the student body was a single race. Attending a multi-cultural school makes for well rounded students, Drexel University concluded.
Brown v. the Board of Education
After a decades-long fight to end segregation in schools, Black people celebrated when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools is unconstitutional in 1954. Brown v. Board of Education was immediately met with backlash, as exemplified by the treatment of the first students to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., better known as the Little Rock Nine.
The nine Black students were spit at, beaten and harassed by segregationists just for trying to go to school. The hatred towards the young students was further justified by Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, who unapologetically resisted the Supreme Court’s decision. Eventually, activists and lawmakers pushed for led the Cooper v. Aaron ruling of 1958, which reenforced the state’s obligation to desegregate schools. The federal government even had to bring in the National Guard to escort the Little Rock Nine to school, we reported.
Addressing Police Brutality
In 2024, 1,365 people were killed at the hands of police. According to Campaign Zero, this marked the deadliest year in history, and Black Americans are suffering disproportionately. Black people were 2.9 times more likely to be killed by police than white folks, the data shows. In 2020, Americans reached their boiling point after the murder of George Floyd, but unfortunately, his death did not mark significant policy change. And this was not the first time Black folks had to deal with violence from police.
The Generational Fight Against Police Brutality
In order to understand the complexities of modern day policing, you have to go back to the origin of the badge. Originally, patrol officers were established as “Slave Patrol” in order to enforce “a system of terror and squash slave uprisings with the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners,” according to the NAACP. By the 1900s, Slave Patrol evolved into modern-day police in order to regulate Jim Crow laws– a series of state and local laws that enforced segregation and discrimination. These folks became the police departments we know now.
With the law on the side of the police and not on the side of Black Americans, communities got creative. In the late ’60s and ’70s, the Black Panther Party decided if the police were not going to properly protect Black communities, then they will, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They carried guns and had standoffs with local police all to challenge their authority and protect Black lives.
Environmental Racism Now
People of color are disproportionately burdened by growing environmental hazards, especially in like of the country’s growing artificial intelligence demand. According to Alternatives for Community and Environment, “AI poised to worsen local air pollution, increase energy costs, and elevate the risk of climate disasters like heat waves and flooding,” and of course, Black communities are being hit the hardest.
In Memphis, an AI supercomputer facility powered by tech billionaire Elon Musk is poisoning a Black community. The poor, predominantly Black community has historically had high rates of pollution-related illness because of power plants and other environmental issues, according to the Tennessee Lookout. And this wouldn’t be the first Black neighborhood to suffer from environmental racism.
How Black Folks Protested Environmental Racism
The term environmental racism was coined in the 1980s, still, Black folks have been subjected to this type of discrimination for generations before that. From the ’30s to the ’60s, redlining practices– denying financial services to someone on the basis of race– led to Black neighborhoods being deemed as “hazardous.” Consequently, industrial facilities and waste sites were cheaply built in Black cities and had major consequences.
Still, Black folks weren’t going down without a fight. According to civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Black students in Houston protested a garbage dump where a child had drowned in 1967. The next year, Harlem residents protested against the building of a sewage treatment plant. All of these demonstrations weren’t successful, but they showed the resolve and determination of Black Americans of the time.
Politicians Using Racism to Get Votes
From former President Joe Biden declaring “you ain’t Black” unless you vote for him to President Trump using race to form his dedicated MAGA fanbase, race has long been a weapon for political gain. Under this slogan, Trump aimed to return the country back to its glory days– although he has yet to explain exactly which era this was. The idea here was to rally white Americans against a common enemy: immigrants “taking American jobs” and all the “others” who don’t fit into his Christian, white male agenda. MAGA was key to Trump’s success in 2016– although it was detrimental in 2020. The same strategy won the president back the White House in 2024.
Richard Nixon and the Southern Strategy
In the 1960s, white politicians had a problem. The Civil Rights Movement of the ’50s and ’60s resulted in the enfranchisement of Black Americans. This meant Black folks were voting– and largely voting Democrat. With Republican Richard Nixon running for president, he decided to try out a new strategy called the “Southern Strategy” in order to galvanize white voters in his favor. The idea was simply demonizing Black and brown Americans to instill white fear. In turn, white Americans would be more inclined to vote Republican, and it worked! In 1968, Nixon won with over 300 electoral votes.
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.