We hear so much about the strong Black woman, you would think sisters aren’t meant to be f*cked with! But there are books, testimonies and statistics showing Black women are pretty much the most f*cked with demographic in America. For almost all of our existence in the United States, we have gotten paid the least and clean up the most. The help.
But the numbers also show: Black. Women. Vote!
In the 2016 presidential election, 94% of Black women voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton. She lost. But a year later, 98% of Black women voters supported Doug Jones of Alabama, a white male, for the U.S. Senate. He won, and African-American women were given a lot of the credit.
So, as it became more and more clear former Vice President Joe Biden would become the Democratic presidential nominee for 2020, the pressure was on. He needed a running mate who was a woman — a Black woman. But even long before Biden made a public announcement about another presidential run, Black women were planning. “Sister to Sister” conversations on polling, politics and power were popping up all over, especially in the South.
One of those gatherings took place days before the 2018 mid-term elections, not far from my house in Durham, North Carolina. A group of nearly 40 Black women stood in a big circle holding hands, speaking their truths. It gave me chills to be in the room as they each took a turn sharing an affirmation of sisterhood:
“Black women grind.”
“Black women enrich lives.”
“Black women are innovative.”
“Black women create legacy.”
“Black women lead.”
I could feel a movement about to explode — a movement some say had been brewing since the early 1960s, in the Mississippi Delta, when Fannie Lou Hamer tried to register to vote. “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d a been a little scared,” she said later.
“But what was the point for being scared? All the whites could do was kill me.”
Chills.
Omisade Burney-Scott attended the “Sister to Sister” event that rainy, Friday night in Durham. When I caught up with her again more recently, she told me she couldn’t imagine Biden choosing anything other than a Black woman to share the ticket with him, after all of the groundwork that had been done.
“How irresponsible would it be to have a white man and a white woman on the political ticket for the Democratic Party in this moment,” Burney-Scott said. “In the midst of a global pandemic, a racial pandemic, a revolutionary uprising!”
She’s right; we got a lot going on right now.
Kara Hollingsworth was also at the “Sister to Sister” salon in Durham in 2018. She also remembers the energy of that night. “There is something in the ways in which we, whether we’re standing in a circle holding hands or not, are always holding each other in that way,” she said.
Hollingsworth is a partner with Three Point Strategies. The firm provides coaching and support to Black female candidates — like the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who has captivated the nation on the national political stage. It amazes me how organized and strategic firms like Three Point Strategies have become. This firm was responsible for preparing Stacey Abrams for her Georgia gubernatorial race. Abrams did not win, but her name was not forgotten, making the short list of VP contenders alongside Harris’s.
Harris gives a lot of her leadership credit to her years at the historically-Black Howard University and to her sorority. Just like me, she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the oldest Black sorority in the country. That means Harris’s circle of supportive sorority sisters has gone from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand. I know that “pink and green” love. It’s fierce, just because. And it’s assumed many Black women, Black men and HBCU graduates may vote for the Biden-Harris ticket, just because.
Hollingsworth says she was able to breathe a sigh of relief after hearing Biden chose Harris. “We’re not all on the same page. Like I’ve talked to people that are like, ‘Oh I don’t agree with her policies, she’s not progressive enough,’” she said. “But it doesn’t matter her politics. You’re not going to drag her, like we will have her back no matter what.”
It was hard, but I had to ask Hollingsworth how it makes her feel when people conclude she’s a Harris supporter “just because” she is Black. “When people say that, it is such a distraction, you know. I’m like, ‘That is ridiculous.’” she said. “I think people say things that are not arguments that value a response, so I say things like, ‘She’s not capable? She’s not brilliant?’ That is ridiculous!”
Capable. Brilliant. These are just a few words that have been thrown out there to describe Harris. But, President Donald Trump has used other adjectives, like “mean” and “most horrible.” And he’s also called her a word that starts with “n.” It’s a word he famously used on the last female candidate to challenge him: nasty. Not the smartest term to use if you want to make inroads with Black women voters this year.
I’m inspired again to think of Fannie Lou Hamer — who was also called an “n” word during her time as a political and community organizer. Reportedly, Hamer had President Lyndon B. Johnson tied in knots when he said this on White House tapes transcribed by the Washington Post: “Last night I couldn’t sleep. About 2:30, I waked up…I do not believe I can physically and mentally carry the responsibilities of the world, and the Niggras, and the South.”
That was in 1964, when Hamer tried to run for Congress on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ticket.
