Black Women Can't Save America From Itself

The 2024 U.S. election has left me more shaken than I expected. As the results poured in, I sat frozen with worry, my 14-year-old son Tendekai next to me. Seeing the early exit poll numbers brought a flood of anxiety. When I checked my phone in the middle of the night to see the results confirmed my fears, my thoughts didn’t immediately turn to the impact of the upcoming administration on the guaranteed income work I’ve been growing for nearly a decade in the economic justice movement.

In that moment—and still a few weeks later—I can only think about my sons.

I think about my six-year-old, and trying to explain to him why a qualified Black woman losing out to a vile bully is upsetting but not surprising in this country. But my most acute and immediate fear is for my teenager. My Black son is coming of age in a nation that feels increasingly hostile toward people who look like him. He’s entering a world shaped by leaders and policies that seem indifferent, at best, to his humanity and his future. And I am terrified.

How am I supposed to continue the important work my day job entails. of creating a vision for reforming systems, when I don’t even know if I can protect the children sleeping upstairs? The enormity of it makes me gasp for air.

I find myself lying awake, asking questions that have no easy answers. How do I keep him safe from the forces that might turn him toward anger or despair, from the violence that could take him from me in a split second, from becoming a father too soon in Mississippi where we live— a state that forces parenthood on children? Each of these fears hovers close, an ever-present shadow, and I feel powerless against the darkness.

At the same time, I know I’m not alone. Many of us — especially Black parents—share this fear. For years, we’ve been fighting, advocating, steeling ourselves in an attempt to change systems designed to disregard or endanger our children.

But this election has highlighted a truth we’ve always known: progress is fragile. And while our resolve is strong, our bodies and hearts are weary. We’ve been carrying this struggle on our shoulders for generations, and we are tired. So deeply, profoundly tired.

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It’s hard to keep moving forward when each step feels like fighting against quicksand, when hope feels like an act of defiance in and of itself. And sometimes, I wonder: when is there space to rest? Should we always be fighting? I am worn down from the sheer effort of survival, of trying to carve out a safe world for my sons while knowing that, at any moment, the systems I cannot control could fail them. I wonder what it would feel like to live in a world where Black parents didn’t have to be in a constant state of vigilance, where we didn’t have to constantly pour our very souls into securing the most basic protections for our children.

Each day brings another reminder that the work isn’t done, that the world remains dangerous for those we love most. And yet, as this election has shown us, the stakes are too high to keep going without pause, to push ourselves to the breaking point in the name of change. If we’re to continue this fight, if we’re to see a world where our children can thrive, we must find ways to care for ourselves, to seek moments of rest, and to remember that this struggle is not ours alone.

Since the election I have been invited to countless strategy meetings on ways progressives can move forward in the years ahead. I have quietly declined all of them. In this moment my strategy is to go inward — to protect home. My focus right now is being the best momma bear I can be. Saving the world, and this country from itself, will have to wait.

I long for the day when I can finally feel at ease, when the safety of my children in this country won’t depend on relentless activism. I don’t know if that moment will ever arrive. But I do know that I’m equipped for the fight ahead. Which for me is to protect my sons. To protect my peace.

At the moment, I have no vision for the future or the work. I trust that my allies who benefit from different racial and gender realities that automatically offer safety step up. That they see it is up to them to shift the members of their communities who did not show up for the only humane candidate in anywhere near the numbers Black women did.

For me, I’m taking off my cape and focusing on home. I need the warm smiles and out loud laughter that is only found in my love bubble with my sons. Their love will be the balm that heals my soul—and moves me forward.

Nyandoro is the founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, a Jackson, Miss. non-profit that has pioneered a “radically resident-driven” approach to ending generational poverty. She is a 2024 TIME100 Next Honoree

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