It was 1989, another summer and the lyricism of Chuck D cemented in our collective memory the call to “Fight the Power.” Public Enemy would include this epic anthem on the soundtrack of the film “Do the Right Thing” which was Spike Lee’s masterpiece on one of the hottest days in Brooklyn and the tensions of a diverse neighborhood reaching the boiling point.
Although it was almost 40 years ago, the parallels between then and today stick out to me. Black America was living out the impacts of the Reagan/Bush years that included Reaganomics which served as a massive transfer of wealth to the ultra rich from the pockets of working class families around the country with the “trickle down theory” as its centerpiece. It theorized that if you gave massive tax breaks to the rich that money and jobs would trickle down to poor and working class communities.
In 2025 we saw something similar with Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill” claiming similar promises, but delivering destructive results. In 1989 we were feeling the pressure of the “War on Drugs” as Black communities were being flooded with both drugs, police enforcement and state violence resulting in the explosion of mass incarceration of Black and brown residents. In 2026 we see a Trump administration using fentanyl as the justification for the mass incarceration and detention of Black and brown immigrants around the country as they vilify immigrant communities as the conduit for drug production and distribution once again.
In the 1980’s we even saw attacks on countries abroad like Grenada, Panama and later Iraq for daring to be independent or to disagree with US foreign policy. Does that not sound similar to the attacks on Venezuela and Iran and the looming threat of attack on Cuba? The even scarier irony is that both eras are being orchestrated by media personalities (see Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump) turned politicians who happened to be the oldest Presidents elected to office in their respective time.
The similarities are clear and the “Power” at question is the same. Chuck D was encouraging us to fight racism, anti-Blackness, authoritarianism and bigotry cloaking itself in public policy. When he blessed us with the bar “Our freedom of speech is freedom or death” that wasn’t just lyricism it was a reminder that our collective voice is essential to combatting tyranny and the absence of that voice could mean our peril. Its inclusion in the soundtrack of “Do the Right Thing” was serendipitous because it provided a visual story and reminder that even those who assumed that they would be unimpacted by politics could find themselves as the main character when confronted by issues of gentrification, police brutality or climate change.
Fighting the Power requires collective resistance. We must fight the power on multiple fronts and in multiple ways. As Chuck D concludes we want “Power to the people, no delay. Make EVERYBODY see, in order to fight the powers that be.”
Dwight M. Bullard is a former Florida state senator and the senior political advisor of Florida Rising. Follow me @flrising and @dwightbullard_ on Instagram.
