Working together with individuals of different races and cultures is something that Black people have done for a very long time. Hundreds of years before Columbus, the Vikings, or anybody else deemed white made the journey, African explorers from several ancient kingdoms crossed the Atlantic and interacted with the inhabitants of the Americas.
HISTORY OF COALITION WORK
Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois State Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, accomplished the miracle of miracles at the age of twenty. He established a coalition that united low-income white hillbillies, Black people, and the Chicano Liberation Movement into a single entity. They united in their fight against the affluent, white powers who aimed to incite conflict among all those groups.
The FBI’s COINTELPRO, in cooperation with Illinois law enforcement, ordered Hampton’s savage assassination because that solidarity posed such a threat to the status quo.
While on sabbatical, the renowned Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman appointed a young, flamboyant minister, Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., to lead his church in San Francisco. During the 1940s, Cleage aimed to mobilize Thurman’s diverse congregation to oppose the American government’s decision to intern Japanese Americans in detention camps.
Alongside Cesar Chavez, Black and Brown people nationwide formed a coalition to fight for workers’ rights. When the state (i.e., the police, the courts, the Texas Legislature, Houston City Hall, etc.) harmed members of their respective communities, a strong coalition of young Black and Brown politicians stood together locally, bringing about beneficial change for both groups. For both Blacks and Latinos in Houston, the horrific killing of Joe Campos Torres served as a call to action against police violence.
When Ida Delaney and Byron Gillum were brutally killed by HPD in 1989, only a few days apart, a large number of Latino activists joined Black activists in demanding justice.
Election 2024 marked a radical change in that paradigm, demonstrating that the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer is still effective, despite the innumerable other instances from Houston and beyond.
WE HAVE NO ALLIES
“There is no Black/Brown coalition — Latinos voted on the side of white supremacy,” Bishop Talbert Swan wrote on social media in response to the vote breakdown that led to rebellion and Trump retaking the White House. We are on our own in this.
Swan wasn’t by himself.
The white world voted as it always does (for whiteness), despite the fact that White Women, White Dudes, and Republicans (white women and men) supported Kamala. This led Washington Informer journalist Anthony Tilghman to tweet the obvious: Regardless of the candidate’s qualifications, the majority of white women and men expressed reluctance to have another Black president in office.
Actor Wendell Pierce tweeted, “The Supreme Court will be changed for a generation. I’ll never see a moderate court again in my lifetime,” capturing one of the effects of the Election 2024 results.
Actress Yvette Nicole Brown discussed how a second Trump administration might affect people Blacks believed to be allies: The way America treats you when it doesn’t care about you is going to stun the rest of you. The phase of finding out has started.
“When we say Black people have no permanent allies, we mean Black people have no permanent allies,” one online sharer wrote.
Elie Mystal, a political analyst, explained it this way: Black people have never liked seeing Latinos strive for model minority status, but this is a scar the Black community will never get over.
In a nutshell, Black people—whether they are common people, celebrities, academics at universities, or prophets from barbershops—are saying that the solidarity that was previously proclaimed, forgotten, and longed for again among marginalized communities is dead on arrival.
“One thing I do worry about is that the solidarity between people of color has been severely damaged,” Mystal continued. Black people have come to realize that we only have one another.
But as we look to the future with clear eyes and are no longer fooled by partnership promises, Black people are calling for a different sort of coalition—one that is Black and Black.
BLACK AND BLACK COALITION
Through social media, in-person conversations, thought pieces from various Black media outlets, or pulpits that have been unafraid to deliver a prophetic word of hard and uncomfortable truths for centuries—all we have is each other, and perhaps that’s all we need—the chorus is growing every day.
Indeed, it would be good if other groups of people could see and appreciate our humanity without being so oblivious to anti-Black sentiment. However, it’s their loss. In the past, Black and Black coalitions, such as the Black people from the US and the diaspora who came together in Harlem, created a movement and a renaissance that still has an impact today.
When West, Central, and Southern Africans with skins like scorched brass and hair like lamb’s wool came together with their Nile Valley siblings, they contributed religion, art, science, and civilization to the globe.
In addition to inspiring the African independence fires that raged across the motherland from the 1960s to the 1980s, Black and Black coalitions took apartheid South Africa to its knees and propelled the Black Power and Civil Rights campaigns.
Numerous Black Wall Streets, all American musical genres, a Haiti free of conquerors and their enslavement system, and much more were all made possible by Black and Black alliances.
And because we let our alliance fall apart, everything we created has been appropriated, stolen, and exploited for the gain of others.
Hopefully, given the challenges we face in the near future, the necessity for a more enduring Black-on-Black alliance will enable us to carry on producing for generations to come. We will, however, keep our sh*t to ourselves this time. And we will remind other people of this moment when they abandoned Black children, Black women, Black men, Black youth, Black elders, Black communities, and Black humanity when they come knocking, pleading, demanding, or anything else for the future genius we will give birth to.
