For the 92% of Black women who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential election, perhaps harboring high hopes that their fellow citizens would choose an eminently qualified Black woman over a twice-impeached convicted felon, the election results brought those hopes crashing down.
Valeisha Butterfield, for example, found herself grappling with profound disappointment—so much so that she didn’t even want to get out of bed the day after election. But as the former National Youth Vote Director for Obama for America and founder of SEED, a media and storytelling platform that aims to positively transform lives, Butterfield knew she needed to move beyond despair and get in community with other Black women to envision a new path forward.”I truly believe that there’s a reason for everything. And so that’s why it is in that spirit that I didn’t want to have an evening of sadness, but an evening of coming together and finding and forging a path forward,” she said.
In that spirit, SEED hosted a virtual convening titled “Power of Black Women” on November 25. Nearly 400 participants joined to hear six dynamic leaders from various industries uplift a community often referred to as the “soul of democracy.” Throughout the evening, several key themes emerged.
Black Women Are Done
A central theme of the night was how much Black women take care of everyone and everything but themselves and wind up burnt out. Dr. Angela Anderson, host, writer and well-being expert encouraged Black women to measure their value outside of what they do and take time to relax. “I want to remind you this, that you are valuable and you are productive. You are not valuable because you are productive. And I think sometimes we equate our value with the things that we’re doing, and that’s why rest is a foreign concept for us,” she said. Dr. Anderson made this lesson catchy with the acronym DONE.
D—Double down on rest and dedicate yourselves to healthy boundaries (delivering from a deficit is over).
O—Own your stuff and let everyone else own theirs (don’t take on so much that you’re overwhelmed).
N—Nurture yourselves first and then nurture the community. Dr. Anderson used a tree metaphor to illustrate the point, “You’ve never seen a tree that has a rotten trunk in healthy branches because the trunk must be healthy first, and then everything that branches off from it is healthy. And so it is a requirement that you prioritize yourself first so that everything that you’re responsible for is then healthy as well.”
E—Extend the same grace you extend to everyone else to yourself. It’s okay to be tired and to ask for help.
She closed by saying, “No longer am I willing to prioritize those to whom I am replaceable at the expense of those to whom I am not.”
Amen to that!
Democrats Lost The Presidency But Scored Many Other Wins
Erica Loewe, special assistant to President Biden and Chief of Staff for engagement, remembers the harrowing attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. She recalled watching “silly racist terrorists” who “could not accept the results of an election” storm through the halls but through perseverance the election was certified. “And I went from pushing a table against the door of the Capitol to keep those racists out to providing a seat at the table in the White House, led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Loewe said. While times may seem dark now, Loewe urged Black women to reflect on the significant strides that had been made over the past four years and during the 2024 election. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman in history to be confirmed to the US Supreme Court. There are also more Black judges serving than at any other time in history. Karine Jean-Pierre became the first Black woman to serve as White House Press Secretary, child poverty was cut in half and improving Black maternal health was finally prioritized.
Loewe also stressed the key role that Black women played in these achievements “We didn’t think a Kamala Harris was possible, now she is because we helped make it so. We didn’t think we’d have two Black women in the Senate, now there are because we made it so. We didn’t think we’d have so many Black members in the House of Representatives. We didn’t think we’d have a Hakeem Jeffries leading the Democratic Party, now he is because Black women helped to make it so.” Moving forward she offered this advice “We are gonna persevere, but we cannot pour from an empty cup. So I encourage all of you to rest, recalibrate and think about ways to get in the fight.”
Doing Your Part Means Leaning Into Your Purpose
In an environment hostile to Black History, HBCUs are more important than ever. Ashley Christopher, founder and CEO of HBCU Week Foundation, created the organization to encourage enrollment in HBCUs, provide scholarships to students so they don’t accrue debt, and create an employment pipeline from the classroom to corporate America. Since its founding in 2017, the foundation has awarded more than $90 million in scholarship money, which can mean the difference between attending an HBCU or not since HBCUs are underfunded by $13 million, said Christopher.
Leaning into her mission to help the next generation of young leaders took on greater importance as Christopher wondered if she’d done enough to help VP Harris in the wake of her loss. “I heard so clearly in my spirit during the midst of that breakdown, you’re already doing your part. And what that made me do was really lean in and focus more on what the HBCU week foundation is. So I’m refocusing my energy on my foundation, but in a much more significant way, and that’s my version of rest and resistance, tuning everything else out that does not align with that, and to continue to pour into these brilliant, Black minds that will go on to change the world,” she said. Christopher urged Black women to do the same in their own lives.
“I encourage everybody who already knows what their ‘why’ is to continue to lean into that. Those of you who haven’t figured it out just yet, give yourself some time and space to really figure out what that why is. What is that why? What’s the impact that you could sustain? Take this time to rest and reset and think about that and pour into that.” She continued, “If you make a move, God will make a way. And there are people that are literally lying in wait for you to answer your call, because your calling is the answer to their blessing and what they need.”
Freedom Figting Is A Multi-Generational Fight
As a Black woman re-entering the Trump era, Chelsea Miller, CEO of CPM Global and Co-founder of the Black youth-led movement Freedom March NYC, knows she’s in for a fight. “We [Freedom March NYC] were founded during the George Floyd uprisings in 2020 and I remember us being on the front lines, and we were essentially marching and protesting and mobilizing against a hostile state… We had Trump, who, at the time, was saying that he was going to send the National Guard into New York City. We had folks saying that the KKK was coming into New York, and so we shouldn’t show up on the front lines. And we showed up anyways.”
Showing up in various ways will be required in the struggle, said Miller, but what will be equally important is uniting with people across generations. While young people are at the forefront of the current freedom struggle, “This work requires a multi-generational approach to how we engage. The reason as to why our movements oftentimes essentially combust is because we are losing the recipes. It is an intentional strategy of the oppressor to separate us generationally, to separate our resources, to separate our identities, to create and put us in these silos and boxes in which we exist to tire us and wear us out. And so I’m grateful for the civil rights organizers that have come before me. I’m grateful for the Tamika Mallorys that have poured into me and our work and our movement.”
As CEO of CPM Global, which works with foundations to tell stories of how young people are creating change, Miller served as an Executive Producer on a docuseries on 1964’s Freedom Summer. The living participants of that voting rights movement had some wisdom to share with today’s young activists: Gen Z and Gen Alpha need to find in-person community again and they should not give up hope. Miller shared one man’s advice: “You find your people, and you lose together, and you lose, and you lose, and you lose until the day that you win.”
Butterfield will host more virtual events in the future but in the meantime, Black women are removing their capes and stepping into fuzzy robes and slippers for some much-needed rest.