As we look forward to the next 60 years of the Bay State Banner, we must remember what we’ve come through to get here. All the hard work and suffering and sacrifice of our people and allies have brought us to this point: The point where we must continue to fight even harder against those who would choose to oppress us and turn the clock back to a time of open racism and violence against the Black and brown communities.

Laws and institutions, so often taken for granted, can protect us … until they don’t. Political leaders throughout history have swept away sacred rights.

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.

And if that’s not enough, bad healthcare policy is spreading like a virus under the new administration and is destined to damage all of us. The spectacle of antivaccine nonsense coming from Florida would be hard to top but it was more than matched on Capitol Hill, where U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. engaged in serial science denialism before a combative chorus of Senate critics. In a continuing political attack on the foundation of American health care, Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Lapado stood beside Gov. Ron DeSantis to announce their intention to end all vaccine mandates. We must demand better for the health of our country.

Trump’s and his acolytes’ diatribes against DEI have scared colleges, public school systems and some private companies into abandoning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that aimed to bring fairness to education and employment. Mind you, the administration has branded DEI illegal without even offering a definition of a shapeless set of policies and practices that the Supreme Court has never outlawed with such breadth. It’s government by sloganeering, by declaration. The “No Kings” protests are right on target.

This Trump administration is the first one to have increased funding for historically Black universities and colleges. That is a good thing for HBCUs, which have historically been underfunded. But those increases, coupled with the attacks on DEI on historically white campuses and the Supreme Court’s wrongheaded ban on considering race in their admissions, contain dangerous echoes of the “separate but equal” doctrine that a prior Supreme Court unanimously ruled unconstitutional.

The administration’s current trend to erase Black history has now transitioned to the next phase — the attacks on freedom of speech, one of the sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The suppression of free speech is a dangerous slide toward racial oppression. When governments start chipping away at the freedom to speak, other liberties are sure to follow. Reactionary and racist forces in America have long used violent means to attack free speech and to silence Black voices seeking greater justice and cultural expression.

But in the end, they have all faltered, and we as a people continue to rise above the assault because of our community’s superpower, Black Joy.

Black Joy is the love of ourselves, illustrated in our culture, art and music that we as a people have created for centuries. Black Joy has fueled the many contributions we as a people have made to the nation and the world. From the early days of our presence in the country, Black Americans’ love for each other has kept our people going. In bondage, when we were not able get married or even keep our loved ones close, Black Joy kept us going. As we fought for our freedom, it was Black Joy that kept our most famous warriors strong against what must have seemed like insurmountable odds. Harriet Tubman, known as the Black Moses, set so many of us free and spoke of Black Joy and how she loved her people.

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world,” Tubman once said.

During the early 20th century, our leaders reminded us through Blackowned news publications that Black is beautiful and smart — that we are just as worthy of love and success as any other American. Despite relentless assault on our image as a people, our most prolific writers celebrated Black Joy by printing and publishing the truth in their papers and books. People like W. E. B. Du Bois knew that we as a people are equal to everyone and that our Black Joy had to keep us going through the onslaught of hate.

“Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities,” Du Bois said. “There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.”

That is the essence of Black Joy and that is why we will continue to publish the Bay State Banner and tell our stories for many more decades to come.

Ronald Du Bois Mitchell
Publisher and Editor, Bay State Banner