One of the most historical elections in our history has come to an end. Although President Trump has refused to concede so far, all mainstream media outlets have called the election for former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris.
President Donald Trump might have lost the election, but he actually improved his numbers with Black voters by 2-3 percentage points. If that’s shocking to you, then you clearly have not been following politics closely enough. But, what might not be shocking to you is that several Black women in prominent roles had a hand in defeating Donald Trump.
1. Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama has been out of the white house for four years, but her influence today is just as powerful as it was back when she was still a resident of the most famous address in America. Back in August, she delivered one of the most powerful speeches at the virtually held Democratic National Convention. Michelle has a way of mixing strength and softness in her speeches, but this particular speech was an especially harsh and straight forward attack of President Trump’s job performance.
The speech was considered by many in the media to be the best speech of the convention.
2. Symone Sanders
Symone Sanders is a political strategist and commentator who served as senior advisor to the joe Biden campaign. The Nebraska native started her career working in the communications department of former Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle and went on to work for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
Symone also worked at CNN the same year as a political analyst and commentator. In the 2020 election, Symone joined Biden’s campaign and became the highest ranking Black campaign advisor.
She is sharp, quick with the responses, and an outspoken advocate for Black issues.
3. Stacy Abrams
Back in 2018, the whole nation was watching Georgia to see if the state would elect the country’s first Black woman governor. Stacy Abrams lost that election with only 44,000 votes. At that point, she had already made history by being the first black woman in America to be a major party’s nominee for governor.
After losing the election, Stacey founded Fair Fight, a national voting rights organization headquartered in Georgia. Since 2018, the organization has registered approximately 800,000 new voters in Georgia and helped the state become competitive for the first time in over 25 years for the Democratic party. Fair Fight has also worked to abolish voting laws they believe encourage voter suppression.
Since the election, social media has been flooded with tributes to Stay’s Abram’s work.
4. Kamala Harris
Senator Kamala Harris has made history as the first woman, first Black, and first Indian to be vice president elect in American history. In the 24 hours after Biden announced Kamala as his vice president, the democrats raised a record breaking $26 million. The selection helped bring fresh enthusiasm to the democratic party for a presidential nominee that was lacking in that department. The enthusiasm gap was especially concerning since President Trump’s backers were highly energized about going to the polls for their candidate.
At the end, the Republicans record breaking voter turnout was beaten by the Democrats. Kamala Harris takes some of the credit for that excitement.
5. The women behind BLM
Black Lives Matter is, by design, a grassroots and decentralized organization. However, the 3 women behind the creation of the organization have propelled it into the world wide phenomenal that it has turned into. Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors founded the movement in 2013 to protest against not just police brutality but all racially motivated violence against black lives.
After the killing of George Floyed, the protest led by Black Lives Matter became the biggest international movement in history. The reaction President Trump had to the protest angered not just those in the movement but others who finally were opening up to the movement. Trump’s handling also motivated some liberals to vote who might have otherwise stayed out of the process due to Bernie Sanders not getting the Democratic nomination.
