What 11 Black Voters Think About Trump’s Actions in His First Month


The first few weeks of President Trump’s frenetic second term, including sweeping actions to end federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, have mostly unfurled during the month of February, when the nation recognizes and celebrates Black history each year.

For Black Americans around the country, the new administration’s actions to undo diversity programs — while vowing to celebrate Black history — have felt swift, if not entirely unexpected.

Some Black voters interviewed on Thursday said they had anticipated that President Trump’s actions would be destabilizing. Those who supported him embraced his quick changes. Those who voted against him — and some who stayed home last November — were aghast. Most were paying close attention, though some said they felt the need to look away.

“As a person who was born in the 1960s in the heart of the civil rights movement, what we are seeing feels like an attempt to return to a different era,” Ms. McCloud said. “I am talking about a time when Black Americans were without civil rights in their own country and women had to ask their husbands for permission to join the work force.”

She was surprised by the speed with which Mr. Trump signed the sweeping executive order that upended diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government.

“There are so many things in our country that need government attention like creating a fair tax system or more access to health care,” she said. “So you have to wonder why this administration is bothering with D.E.I.”

“I think the first month has been excellent,” said Mr. Evans, who grew up in a politically diverse family on Long Island and moved to Texas after college in 2021. “Some Americans aren’t used to feeling the effects of a president, and especially so soon after an inauguration, but that should be the norm.”

Mr. Evans voted for Mr. Trump and said he supported the president’s rolling back of federal diversity initiatives.

“I believe in a merit-based society,” he said. “I don’t want to know that I was a check box, that I’m nothing more than a title in an H.R. system’s computer because they didn’t have enough Black people.”

“I’m going to be honest: I have not looked much at the news since the election,” Pastor Parker said. Many in his congregation, he said, “are licking wounds and figuring out how to respond.”

One of Mr. Trump’s moves that had broken through, he said, had been the president’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government. It felt similar to earlier periods of backlash against civil rights progress made by Black Americans, he said, like after the end of slavery, the civil rights movement and the election of President Barack Obama.

“Any progress we’ve made is considered something that takes away from those who actually have power,” Pastor Parker said. “There’s always that sense that our progress is a hindrance to others’ progress.”

Ms. Muhammad said she voted for Mr. Trump in part because he promised to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I wanted him dealing with the health of this country,” she said of Mr. Kennedy. “That was a win.”

And she sees a lot to like in Mr. Trump’s first month in office: She supports his executive orders on illegal immigration, which she sees as a drain on the economy, and banning trans women from women’s sports.

“I think that the government is there to help you when you need it, not to solve every problem for us,” she said.

“They’re really just kind of haphazardly going through it, and you don’t really know what they’re doing,” Mr. James said of the Trump administration’s efforts to halt government payments and cut programs related to diversity.

“Racism is definitely in play,” he said, but he also believed the administration was deploying it as a way to dismantle government in general. “But sometimes multiple things are happening at once.”

Mr. James, who voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, said he did not regret choosing a third-party candidate. Democrats did not earn his vote, he said, particularly when it came to their support for Israel’s war in Gaza. “I would 1,000 times vote Green Party,” he said.

“People are feeling personally attacked by the president of our United States,” said Pastor Hale, who is planning to take part in a nationwide “economic boycott” later this month.

Pastor Hale is also paying attention to an effort by another Atlanta-area pastor, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, who is calling for a 40-day “fast” of Target, to protest the chain’s announcement that it would roll back its diversity goals and programming.

She compared the efforts to the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., in the 1950s, and considered the notion that sometimes change requires sacrifice. “There’s going to be discomfort,” Pastor Hale said, “but we have to make a point.”

Ms. Wilder, a Democrat, said that she didn’t vote because she believed that Mr. Trump was going to win. Now, she is preparing for what she believes he will do in office: end food assistance, Social Security and housing assistance — among other programs for the poor.

“I already know that everything is about to end, so I’ve just been trying to get myself together and look for better paying jobs,” Ms. Wilder said.

“Racism was here before I was born,” she said. “The battle I choose is employment. Can we get more pay? I work in the public schools and I make $17 an hour. That is not enough.”

Ms. Green said she was upset by the large-scale cuts being carried out by Mr. Trump and she was particularly bothered by the central role of Elon Musk, who is running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“To have someone in office that we didn’t vote for, that’s crazy,” she said.

“We’ve seen the White House being taken over,” said Ms. Green, who voted for Kamala Harris.

She added that the power given to Mr. Musk struck her as anti-democratic. “Is he a co-president? Is he my president’s boss?” she wondered. “They’re eliminating us, the ‘we the people’ part.”

“The stuff that Donald Trump is doing is pretty much expected,” said Mr. Williams, who did not vote in the 2024 election because he did not like either major-party candidate.

“It’s like, he’s got a second chance of doing his thing,” he said. “Let’s just hope everything he’s doing is going to turn out OK. Nobody wants to live in poverty. No one wants to live in a bad situation.”

But Mr. Williams said he worried that Mr. Trump and his administration were moving too fast. “We agree on being aggressive, but it’s the speed,” he said. “Take some time, do some research first.”

“You cannot tell me that President Trump has not been working hard,” Mr. James said. “We have not seen this level of effectiveness ever.”

Mr. James voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016, but was won over during Mr. Trump’s first term by his support for tax cuts and deregulation. He has been most excited by Mr. Trump’s use of tariffs to drive more favorable trade terms with foreign partners. He is hopeful that Americans will benefit from renegotiating trade deals that he believes have undermined the working class.

Mr. James also hopes that the Trump administration will champion the nuclear family.

“I came from a very strong family with a strong work ethic,” he said. “The new frontier for us is no longer race and gender discrimination. It has to do with families and the better outcomes that people with strong families have.”

Mr. Traylor said that the Trump administration’s deportation plans and its executive order stating that there are only two genders have caused great distress in his multicultural community. And then there was “Elon Musk and his Nazi salute,” he said, referring to a disputed hand gesture that Mr. Musk made at a rally of supporters after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

“A lot of people are in a place teetering on despair, really feeling the weight of this moment,” Mr. Traylor said.

He recently met with a group of fellow Black Jews and Jews of color to talk about how to rely on the eternal truths of their faith in this moment.

“That can always be a guide for us, even amid these complicated policies that are coming out of the White House,” he said.



Source link

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR