By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
America has reached a precipice. There is no more waiting, no more wondering, no more giving the benefit of the doubt. The war against Black America is no longer theoretical. It is real. It is happening now. And those who still don’t see it—or worse, refuse to act—are signing their own death warrants.
Donald Trump, the Heritage Foundation, and their Project 2025 blueprint for tyranny have made it clear: this is a full-scale attack on African Americans. Yes, other marginalized groups—Latinos, the LGBTQ+ community, women—are in the crosshairs, but if history is our guide, Black America has the fewest allies when the bullets start flying. How many times have we watched those who should stand with us scatter at the first sign of trouble?
When the MAGA mob chants about “DEI” and “wokeness,” they are not talking about policies. They are saying the N-word in polite company.
When they slash funding for Black institutions, ban Black books, and rewrite Black history, they are sharpening the knife for what comes next. The Smithsonian Institution has already closed its diversity office. Black History Month, Juneteenth, and MLK Day are banned from federal recognition. The National Museum of African American History and Culture? Next. HBCUs? Next. The Black Press? In their sights.
Trump and his regime of bigotry are gutting every Black institution and opportunity they can. They want to strip our culture, our legacy, our very existence from America’s history books, then from its present, and finally, from its future.
And let’s talk about pettiness—because being petty helped put us here.
Petty revenge. Petty feuds. Petty ignorance.
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and the Democratic Party ignored the power of the Black Press. They dismissed Black media, possibly because of a short-sighted grudge over someone’s association with a group that had zero impact on the election. But the consequences of their pettiness were very real.
That same ignorance was among several things that cost Kamala Harris the election.
Before ceding power to a dictator, the Democratic establishment did nothing to fortify Black media, Black organizations, or Black institutions, the very entities whose purpose is to uplift and inform Black America.
We do not have the luxury of pettiness anymore. We do not have time for grudges. The enemy is no longer at the gates. The enemy has crashed through the walls.
No More Talk—Only Action
It is time for Black America to mobilize. Not with hashtags. Not with statements. With action. With money. With power.
Black institutions must unite like never before. The NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Action Network, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Rainbow PUSH, the Congressional Black Caucus—now is the time. No more operating in silos. No more petty differences. This is an emergency. It is the type of emergency that may have been ignored a little more than 400 years ago when a group of about 20 Africans were brought to the new colony of Virginia and traded as slaves for food.
Black billionaires, celebrities, and business moguls—we need you now. Oprah. Tyler Perry. LeBron James. Jay-Z. Rihanna. Tiger Woods. Michael Jordan. Magic Johnson. Robert Smith. Alex Karp. Wemimo Abbey. Iman Abuzeid. Joshua Aviv. Melissa Bradley. We need you. And, make no mistake, Trump is coming for you too.
Kanye West learned a hard lesson when he bragged that they couldn’t touch him because he was a billionaire. The very next day, he lost nearly $1 billion in wealth. They are on a “Show you better than I can tell you” mission.
They are coming for all of us. Rich or poor. Young or old. Educated or not. Famous or unknown.
We are in this together, whether we like it or not. And the only way to win—or even survive—is to finally band together and reject the selfish mindset of “I’ve got mine; you get yours.”
Because soon, none of us will have anything.
The Black Press Must Survive
Our battle begins with collaboration, and at the heart of it, Black Americans must support Black-owned newspapers, media, and businesses like our ancestors did during Jim Crow. The NNPA and the Black Press need resources to keep telling our stories. Contribute at NNPAfund.org. Subscribe to a Black newspaper. Follow Let It Be Known News, Make It Plain, April Ryan, WIN-TV, and other Black media outlets. If we do not control our own narrative, Trump will write it for us.
Everyday people? Contribute. Spread the word. Heck, you can even hit $Mrmedia2022 on CashApp. Whatever you can, donate to our organizations. This is not just a fight for survival. It is a fight for our continued existence.
The Endgame Is Clear
Do not be fooled. They want us erased.
They want to destroy the institutions that sustain us. They want to police and profile us and imprison us. They want to deport Black migrants and dismantle civil rights protections. They want to crush everything Black people have built in this country.
We are watching the most racist administration in modern history wage an unrelenting war against us. There is no more time to wake up. We are already in the fire.
The question now is: will we fight, or will we burn?
The time is now.
