Kamala Harris’ defeat won’t stop black women from fighting

ATLANTA — By midnight, after a long day of helping voters, Tamika Atkins decided to turn off the television as the presidential election results came in.

“I stay up late and bite my nails,” said Atkins, chief executive Pro-Georgia, non-party coalition civic engagement groups. “It takes time for me to learn, and that’s what I tell other people and what I tell myself: Any choice is not a magic bullet that’s going to make everything better.”

She said black women have long fought ongoing battles over issues including women’s rights and winning elections.

“The work is not finished and I have a responsibility to my people. So I get up. I’m having breakfast. I watch the news,” Atkins said. “I’m starting to strategize. I’m thinking about 2025.”

Over the course of several months, groups led primarily by black women intensified campaigns to attract people to vote across the country are raising millions of dollars, rallying thousands of volunteers and encouraging people of color, young and old, to vote.

Most of them, like Atkins, didn’t tell people who to vote for. It was at the discretion of the voters. But many were encouraged by the historic proposal Kamala Harristhe first black woman from Southeast Asia to run for president.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, many of these leaders agreed that Georgia had joined the grassroots groups that had been doing the work for days, months, years. A Harris victory in this key battleground could mark the start of a new day in a state that has been in the spotlight, breaking records for support for Republican presidential candidates and GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate.

In a region steeped in the history of civil rights and voting rights that transformed the country, black women are credited with recently helping two Georgia Democrats win seats in the U.S. Senate. A few years earlier, they helped turn out voters and helped Joe Biden narrowly win the state in 2020.

So Harris Tuesday’s defeat to a former Republican president Donald Trump In Georgia, it was especially painful, said Wendy Smoot, a professor of women’s gender and sexuality studies, political science and the John Glenn School of Public Policy at Ohio State University.

Harris’ proposal has energized activists and others in Georgia. Their election game was aggressive. There were huge buses that transported agitators to often ignored rural communities and busy urban centers. There were parties, prayer breakfasts and events with national and local celebrities.

“This is a moment of collective grief and disappointment that we have spent so many hours organizing, energizing, explaining, educating and helping people believe in the possibilities,” Smooth said.

Black women in the national spotlight

While not a monolith, black women, as a voting bloc, have historically supported Democratic candidates. Early exit polls show that the situation has not changed in this election, Smooth said.

“The consistency and reliability of the support of African American women and their ability to show up and show up in huge numbers in support of Democratic Party policies, in support of democracy, is indelible,” Smooth said. “Black women do what they say, and when they say they’re going to show up, they show up.”

The organizations spent a year canvassing in their communities, including historically black colleges in the South.

“Regardless of political ideology, this has been a tough year,” Atkins said. “We were the center of attention. It’s never fun to be the center of attention and be criticized.”

“There are always unrealistic expectations placed on Black women and women of color,” she continued. “We are expected to identify not only ourselves, but our family members and our community, and that in itself is work that I think often goes unrecognized.”

Atkins noted that Black women have led efforts to help their communities fight the pandemic as well as the passage of what they call restrictive voting laws, especially in states like Georgia. Despite these laws, Atkins said, A record number of people voted during the early voting period.

More than 4 million votes were cast, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

“I have to look at this as a win,” Atkins said. “We’re here to participate.”

Some, however, were surprised by the Democrats’ defeat in Georgia.

“I was really quite convinced that Georgia would tell a different story because of the mobilization that I knew was happening on the ground, largely led by Black women and women of color,” Smooth said.

She pointed to the infrastructure created during the last midterm elections and the last presidential election. “They’ve built incredible infrastructure… I don’t question the energy sector. I don’t question the strategies that have been implemented in states like Georgia in particular,” she said. “They have been tested on the battlefield.”

“The World is Watching”

It wasn’t until 3 a.m. Wednesday that Deborah Scott woke up to learn that Harris had lost not only Georgia, but her national bid as well.

As an activist, she laments the loss of time, the loss of resources, the loss of democracy. She cried all morning.

“I cried for my daughter. I cried for my granddaughter that I don’t have yet,” said Scott, executive director of Georgia STAND-UP, a civic engagement organization. “I cried for the kids who don’t yet understand what happened here… because we don’t know how far they’re going to turn back time. But we also know that we have survived before and will continue to survive.”

On Election Day, the day before, Scott’s group threw a giant party across the street from the polling place. It was the latest of several voter mobilization efforts. For hours, hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot, where food trucks offered free wings and ice cream. Participants danced to the music of a DJ and held signs in their hands, while cars honked their horns as they rushed by.

“This was a turning point in history, and it could have turned out differently,” Scott said. “We had hoped that this would be the moment when this country would really face up to its own racism and find a better path to democracy. We know the world was watching.”

Other black women are making history

Despite Harris’ defeat, several black women activists said they welcomed news of other black women’s successes.. Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Ozblokes of Maryland, both Democrats, won their races on Tuesday, becoming the first time two black women will simultaneously serve in the Senate.

“I’m glad that (even) despite the loss … we did make history, that black women have something to look forward to,” Scott said.

Holly Holliday, President The leading sisters vote, pointed to other races in which black women won, including Melesa Johnson, who won her bid for Jackson County prosecutor in Missouri, becoming the first black woman to hold that position.

“This is a reason to think. It’s something to build on,” said Holliday, whose organization, among other things, conducts research on black women running for local and national office.

More than 1,200 black women across the country ran for office in local and national elections this year, according to Holliday. Of those, nearly 700 were included on Tuesday’s general ballot. She said it was unclear how many people won because all the results had not yet been received.

“The first thing we do is make sure that these women who won are protected and recognize that their job has become much more difficult because they are now running in a more disadvantaged environment,” Holliday said, noting other House Republican victories. and the Senate.

She said these victories paved the way for women continue to increase political strength.

“Black women are strengthening their position in political leadership by winning these positions,” Holliday said. “What’s great about this is we’ll leave here with a much stronger infrastructure than where we were two years ago. We have a stronger infrastructure than even 30 days ago.”

Black women are grieving not only in Georgia

Harris’ defeat in Georgia came as a shock to black women elsewhere.

“Four years ago, this was the great black hope for Biden,” said Alicia Coulter of Los Angeles. “The respect that we have for Georgia because it is the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement… I just don’t understand it.”

Trump won Georgia by 50.7%. to Harris’ 48.5%. “I thought Kamala could handle it,” she said.

Coulter, the mother of three college-aged daughters, was optimistic that Harris, her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister, could win Blue Wall states, but saw those expectations quickly fade.

“I got a text message from one of my sorority sisters who just couldn’t believe what we were seeing. She told me, “We keep trying to tell them. We keep trying to save them and they still don’t listen,” Coulter said.

In Las Vegas, Caroline Evans, a Harris supporter, said she felt disheartened after watching the Electoral College map turn red on TV.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, the whole country actually voted for him,’” said Evans, the mother of two grown sons and two grandchildren. “It’s incredible to me how quickly they forget how bad he was, what he said, or they don’t care and they’re not ready for a woman, a black woman, to be in charge. I don’t know how I’ll cope with this.”

Evans, a former nurse, said she is also concerned about reproductive rights. She voted for Harris, who vowed to protect them.

“I just feel sorry for all these women of childbearing age. What are they going to do? – said Evans. “I voted for Kamala to look after my 12-year-old granddaughter. What will her future be like when she grows up to be a young woman?”

“We’re still here”

Atkins and others plan to meet virtually Friday to discuss their efforts and future plans. In the meantime, she planned to spend Wednesday texting partners and employees to thank them for their efforts.

“As far as the work people have done, I have no regrets,” she said. “People worked damn hard… I have no regrets, but I want to find a different way of doing this work that is more sustainable.”

Smooth said she expects there will be a post-mortem after the loss, including during their early voting efforts.

But “these groups are here to stay,” she said. “In its true form, black women’s organizations will do things because that’s what they’ve always done.”

Scott was scheduled to speak Wednesday with other activists in Georgia. She advised her staff to take the day off to rest and reflect so they could regroup.

“It’s deeper than what we see, so we’ll take some time to analyze what it means for this country and what it means for our future,” she said. “But we’re still here. We are resilient.”

Follow Deborah Berry on X/formerly Twitter: @dberrygannett