I Understand Why Black Folks Aren’t Participating in the No Kings Protests

What barriers have we built into organizing, and who do they keep out?

Nearly seven million Americans took to the streets to oppose authoritarianism during the recent No Kings protest on October 18, and over five million in June. However, one thing was noticeably missing from these protests: Black folks. Even in cities with large Black populations like Baltimore, DC, and Philadelphia, the protests mainly involved middle-aged to older white people. Across the country, these demonstrations were overwhelmingly white, starting a long-overdue reckoning with who has historically carried the burden of building and maintaining America’s democracy.

The Breaking Point of Perpetual Resistance

To understand why Black Americans are sitting out, we must first know what we’ve been sitting through. 83% of Black voters supported Kamala Harris in 2024, with Black women supporting her at 89%. We organized, phone-banked, and turned out. So when Harris lost, it was a further indication that even when Black communities do everything right, America chooses otherwise.

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, expressed a sentiment many share, and I fully agree: Black women specifically are refusing to keep acting as “shock absorbers for all the pain that happens politically in this country.” From Ida B. Wells and her anti-lynching campaigns and fight for women’s suffrage to Stacey Abrams and her contemporary voter mobilization efforts in Georgia, and from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, both Black women and the wider Black community have consistently been on the frontlines, urging America to live up to its founding ideals. Now, the burden of carrying this weight for centuries feels too heavy to bear without a break for many of us.

One Black woman, ​​Alexanderia Haidara, who joined the protests despite the collective desire to sit out, poignantly described the dilemma. After losing her job in international development due to Trump’s dismantling of USAID and his attacks on DEI, she realized that waiting for white America to fix itself has never worked. Though she acknowledged the legitimacy of those who are choosing to rest—recognizing that her community has been fighting these battles for generations—she argued, “I can’t rest, even if I tried…Resting without a plan is…surrender. If we mistake silence for safety, we will wake up in an American nightmare of our own making.”

I understand where she’s coming from, but I disagree about this becoming “our own making” if we rest.

On Being Excluded and Ignored

The protests were white in their conception, planning, and execution. This created huge barriers that even the most well-meaning organizers failed to recognize.

For example, when Noelle Bowman held the first meeting for what would become Indivisible Akron, all nineteen attendees were middle-aged white women. Subsequent meetings and protests continued to have the same demographics. Bowman acknowledged that organizers were sharing information through word-of-mouth networks that simply didn’t include Black people or organizations. Ray Greene of The Freedom Bloc mentioned, “Black people haven’t been invited. Black organizations haven’t been invited. I’ll find out about them, normally a week before or a day before.”

But exclusion from planning isn’t the only obstacle. Safety concerns, rooted in lived experiences of unfair treatment, also play a role. When Black communities protested racial injustice in 2020, police presence was overwhelming, with barricades everywhere and sometimes nearly as many officers as protesters. Yet when Indivisible Akron held its April “Hands Off!” protest with 2,000 people, the city only sent one patrol car. White protesters are seen as citizens exercising their rights, while Black and brown protesters are perceived as threats that require policing.

When Bill Maher questioned the lack of Black people at No Kings protests, one Reddit user summed it up perfectly:

“Because we BEEN showing up, including at the voting booth.

We’ll show up eventually, but many of us feel like the more we show up and show out, the faster these peaceful protests will be considered a riot and give them the excuse to escalate. People will feel much more empathy if they see a bunch of old white hippies get beat up by ICE.

In all honesty, most Black people feel incredibly betrayed by what happened last year. We were the ONLY group who not only told the rest of y’all what was going on, we also voted accordingly. We knew what was at stake and we really couldn’t afford to ‘just see what happens’ if Trump won again. So, we don’t feel like we owe anyone anything. We always put our bodies on the line.”

The Inadequacy of Symbolic Resistance

Even beyond safety and inclusion, many Black Americans question whether these protests are worth the risk. The No Kings demonstrations, despite their impressive numbers, have lacked the disruptive force necessary for meaningful change. They took place on Saturday afternoons when people could comfortably attend without sacrificing work time or seriously disrupting city functions. Weekend marches that inconvenience no one and cost corporations nothing are inadequate for this moment. As one activist said, unless we want protests to be merely symbolic, they must demand more from us in ways that “make the Trump administration and its corporate allies feel the political blowback of trying to push a king on us.”

The Black community strategically resists through economic boycotts and what Al Sharpton calls “buy-cotts.” When Target withdrew its DEI initiatives, Black-led organizations organized boycotts that led to declines in foot traffic, stock prices, and quarterly sales. Meanwhile, Costco’s dedication to DEI led to organized buy-ins, resulting in millions of additional visits. The NAACP maintains a public list of companies that have scaled back their DEI policies and those that have kept their commitments, serving as a guide for consumer action. This illustrates how to generate tangible economic consequences for companies that give in to authoritarian pressure.

For Black Americans, Our Resistance Looks Different

The most significant insight is that Black Americans aren’t entirely sitting out. We’re simply participating in different ways. Stacy Davis Gates of the Chicago Teachers Union pointed out that being Black itself is a political strategy. From navigating the workplace to shopping for groceries, every aspect of daily life involves political awareness and calculation. The idea of “sitting out” assumes that Black people have the luxury of choosing when to engage politically. In reality, our existence in America is an ongoing negotiation with hostile systems.

While white-led protests make headlines, Black communities have been filling gaps, developing local leadership, and showing up in ways that prioritize our communities. We have concentrated on state and local advocacy, letter-writing campaigns, and grassroots organizing. We have been reclaiming space for Black joy while building networks that support long-term resistance.

Personally, I’ve been resisting by spending my dollars at Black-owned and local businesses instead of Amazon. I’ve been a part of organizing and canvassing efforts encouraging people to vote yes on Prop 50. I’ve attended community events like the Sisterhood Supper this past summer, an event hosted by WANDA that aims to heal and advocate for Black communities through the power of sisterhood and food. I donate supplies to organizations like Ward 4 Mutual Aid. This is what my resistance looks like, where I feel like my contributions are actually making a difference.

What’s next?

Yes, the No Kings protests matter even though they yield no immediate political results. However, the lack of Black Americans’ participation should prompt reflection, not defensiveness. It shows that white-led movements have failed to create environments where Black participation is safe, valued, and strategically significant. It highlights that symbolic weekend protests feel insufficient. It also proves that movements ignoring the specific harms faced by Black communities will struggle to earn their participation.

Instead of asking, “Why aren’t Black people showing up?” Ask instead, “What barriers have we built into organizing, and who do they keep out?”

---