Laws and institutions, so often taken for granted, can protect us … until they don’t. Political leaders throughout history have swept away sacred rights and the agents entrusted with their preservation when given an opportunity to disenfranchise their opponents.

Americans watching the erosion of democracy in the early years of the 21st century in places like Hungary and Russia may have believed the same could never happen here. They were wrong. The rising tide of right-wing, authoritarian power has taken root in Washington, D.C., with its epicenter in the White House of President Donald J. Trump.

In alliance with his compliant foot soldiers on Capitol Hill and emboldened by a Supreme Court majority bending to his wishes, Trump is using his second term in office to create an upside-down Alice in Wonderland government where civil rights become civil wrongs and the strength of diversity becomes a weakness.

The National Urban League captured the scope of the crisis engendered by the Trump presidency in its annual report on the “State of Black America” issued last week at its conference in Cleveland, Ohio. “State of Emergency: Democracy, Civil Rights and Progress Under Attack” is more than just a litany of the backsliding on economic progress, voting rights protections and basic services in housing, health care, education and nutrition to the needy. It is a stirring call to action to organize and oppose the broad threat to democracy and the well-being of African Americans.

“We are witnessing something more than policy shifts. We are watching an attempt to turn back the clock to an era when the full humanity of all Americans was not recognized — when the idea of true equality was treated as a threat to the social order,” warns National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial in the report. “What we face today is a deliberate, coordinated effort to deny the future of a more just and inclusive America. And the architects of this effort have made their intentions plain: They would rather see our democracy crumble than cede power to a multi-racial egalitarian society.”

In an article in the Bay State Banner this week, Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts President Rahsaan Hall provides an overview of the report’s findings, with an emphasis on “the radical transformation of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division from a historic guardian of equal protection to what Morial described as a ‘tool of political retribution.’” The withdrawal of the federal government from voting rights cases, its dismissal of cases involving tampering with election equipment and the pardoning of Jan. 6 insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol are cited as evidence.

This year’s report is the 49th edition of the “State of Black America,” a series launched by Vernon Jordan during the nation’s 1976 bicentennial celebration to assess the legal, economic and social status of African Americans. The report that year, coming after the crest of the Civil Rights Movement and in the wake of a devastating energy crisis, painted a gloomy picture of prospects for Blacks in a nation that had seemingly lost its moral compass in the fight for equality and economic progress. But at least in Jimmy Carter, the United States was led by a president elected on a pledge to promote racial unity and opportunity through expanded voting rights, education, job growth and federal hiring policies to make the workforce look more like America.

On all four of those fronts, the Trump administration has failed the interests of Black America by eliminating diversity from its vocabulary, attacking higher education and eliminating the Department of Education, ignoring voting rights abuses and driving down employment through destructive tariffs.

The latest National Urban League document takes aim not just at Trump but at other powerful players it accuses of kowtowing to the White House agenda, which is largely shaped by Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation blueprint for sweeping changes to governance. Major corporations, law firms and universities have fallen in line with Trump by canceling commitments to equitable hiring and inclusion policies. Social media platforms come under fire for allowing hateful rhetoric to flourish while muzzling the voices of Black activists.

The National Urban League, in keeping with its 115-year history of activism, has joined with organizations such as the National NAACP, state governments and other allies to marshal resistance. Lawsuits filed by the League in cooperation with state attorneys general challenge federal anti-equity executive orders.

Locally, the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts is heroically doing its best to run programs aimed at increasing generational wealth despite federal cuts. Training in coding, artificial intelligence and STEM disciplines helps prepare our community for higher-paying jobs. Fighting for same-day voter registration — shown to boost turnout in jurisdictions where it exists — helps protect us from the erosion in voting rights.

“Across courtrooms and classrooms, from statehouses to boardrooms, a new generation of leaders is rising to defend the gains we’ve made and push for the progress still to come,” writes Morial in the conclusion of his report letter. “The work is difficult. The road is long.” But we have no choice. Bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice does not happen on its own. As Morial says, “It must be bent by those with the strength and will to see it through.”

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner