The Political War on Black Women Is Patterned, and So Is Our Resistance
In this op-ed, Sharon M. Holder, Ph.D., writes that Black women were left out of the Nineteenth Amendment’s promise and did not gain full access to the ballot until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on her work as a behavioral-health researcher, she argues fear, silence and trauma shape political participation as powerfully as laws do. She recalls Charlotte E. Ray, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary Hamilton and Angela Davis, then points to current attacks on Lisa Cook, Letitia James, L. Louise Lucas, LaMonica McIver and Ilhan Omar. She calls voting a refusal to be silenced.
History lingers. It sits beside us like an old witness, reminding us that what we call progress is often unfinished work. After a long conversation with one of my dearest friends, I found myself naming something I had long felt but never said plainly: There has always been a political war on Black women. Not metaphorical. Not abstract. A war: patterned, intentional and persistent.
The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, prohibited states from denying the right to vote based on sex and legally enfranchised millions of American women. But Black women were not welcomed into that promise. Instead, they continued to face poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and Jim Crow laws that made voting a dangerous act. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, nearly half a century later, that Black women gained full access to the ballot.
This is why remembering the Nineteenth Amendment matters. Not as a celebration, but as a caution. It reminds women of color that rights can be granted on paper and denied in practice. It reminds us that enfranchisement is not the same as safety, and that voting is not only a civic act but a psychological one.
As a behavioral-health researcher, I see this clearly: Fear, silence, stigma and trauma shape political participation just as powerfully as laws do. When a system repeatedly harms you, you learn to expect harm. When your voice is punished, you learn to quiet it. When your dignity is challenged, you learn to protect it by withdrawing. These are not personal failings. They are patterned responses to patterned violence.
Consider the women who dared to step into public life and were punished for it.
In 1872, Charlotte E. Ray became the first Black woman admitted to the D.C. bar. Brilliant and accomplished, she still faced barriers so severe that practicing law became nearly impossible. Her excellence was treated as a threat.
In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery bus. Her arrest was not simply about transportation. It was about punishing a Black woman who asserted her dignity in public.
In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer attempted to register to vote in Mississippi. For that act alone, she was arrested and brutally beaten. Her body became a battleground for a state determined to keep Black women out of political power.
In 1964, civil rights activist Mary Hamilton stood in an Alabama courtroom and refused to answer a judge who insisted on calling her “Mary” instead of “Miss Hamilton.” Her demand for respect became a Supreme Court case, because even her name was treated as a provocation.
In the 1970s, Angela Davis was falsely implicated in a violent courthouse takeover. She spent more than a year in jail before being acquitted, becoming an international symbol of how the state targets Black women who challenge its authority.
These women were not targeted randomly. They were targeted because of who they were: Black, female, brilliant and unwilling to bend. There is a rhythm to destruction. It begins quietly, with a whisper, a justification, a story told in the wrong direction. Then the cycle begins again.
And here we are.
Today, Black women in positions of power are facing coordinated attacks that echo the past. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American in Congress, have all faced political assaults that go far beyond policy disagreements. In Omar’s case, opponents have even attempted to strip her of her citizenship after 26 years.
The pattern is unmistakable. When Black women rise, the backlash rises with them.
This is why voting matters, especially for Black women and women of color. Not out of memory alone, but out of survival. Voting is a refusal to be silenced. It is a counter-narrative to stigma. It is a behavioral-health intervention in a nation that has repeatedly tried to make us afraid.
The war on Black women is woven into the nation’s political DNA, but so is our resistance. The question now is whether the country will finally confront the pattern or continue repeating it.
Sharon M. Holder, Ph.D., is a behavioral-health researcher.