Since January 2025 over 300,000 Black women have been released from the workforce. Specifically since Trump has taken office. This current administration has made it a mission to target Black women in leadership positions both inside and outside of government. With Donald Trump engaging in public battles in trying to fire Lisa Cook from the FED (the first and only Black woman on the FED) and his firing of Dr. Carla Hayden (the first Black person to serve as Librarian of Congress), the Trump Administration has shown a disdain for Black women. If this were the mass firing of white men every news station would call this a crisis, but this story seems buried on the backpage. Both the gravity and reality of the situation is yet another reminder that no one is coming to save us.
This situation reminds me of one of the myriad of stories of systemic racism in America. During World War I as Black soldiers were being drafted to fight in France, they would send their money home to their wives back at home. The paycheck that they earned was enough to cover the living expenses at home, meaning their wives didn’t have to work to pay the bills. At the time Black women made up the bulk of domestic workers like maids, servants and cooks. White women were so inconvenienced by not having Black women to do their cooking and cleaning that they petitioned the US Government to force Black women back to work. This and so many other stories are a furtherance of how the government has devalued Black women.
Nevertheless Black women have given this country far more than this country has afforded them and in this moment it may be in our collective best interest that Black women take their talent and treasure and send a message to this country that America needs Black women far more than Black women need America. Black women have fed, clothed and taught generations of ungrateful white Americans like Donald Trump. Americans that got rich through greed and nepotism. Fed by a silver spoon, but failing to recognize the hand that fed them was that of a Black woman. All the while these Black women and their genius have brought astronauts back from space. They’ve given us the ability to get from point A to point B by inventing GPS. They have even given us the ability to see one another on devices like this laptop I’m typing on, by giving us the technology that fuels Facetime and Zoom.
This country owes a debt of gratitude (and actual money…REPARATIONS!) to Black women in particular that continues to rack up like the national deficit. All of this as Black women outpace every other demographic group in terms of education. Yet people like Donald Trump have the audacity to push Black women out of the workforce. To channel Rihanna, if Black women are gonna Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, then Pay them what you owe them!
Dwight M. Bullard is a former Florida state senator and the senior political advisor of Florida Rising.
