By Sym Posey
The Birmingham Times
Alabama State Sen. Merika Coleman (D-Pleasant Grove) invested heavily into Vice President Kamala Harris’s run for president of the United States, even traveling to battleground state of Pennsylvania on behalf of Harris.
“For months, I canvassed, I spoke at churches, I sent text messages, just anything I could to get the vote out. … I did everything I could to try to point people in the right direction,” Coleman said.
The senator said she was so confident that Harris would become the 47th president that she had already made reservations to the inauguration in January.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump won the Nov. 5, 2024, election with 51 percent of the vote to Harris’s 48.1 percent.
“I was shocked. I was hurt. I was saddened by the results of the election,” Coleman said. “It almost feels like that [the] Black women who voted for Harris are out on an island by ourselves.”
The Alabama state senator is not alone.
Tens of thousands of Black women voters and elected officials, like Coleman, nationwide poured their hearts and souls—and finances—into campaigning on behalf of Harris for an emotionally turbulent three and a half months. Now that the election is over, many are coping with the loss, according to an article in the New York Amsterdam News shortly after the election.
Also a final count of 89 percent of Black women voters cast their ballot for Harris in 2024, according to the Associated Press (AP) VoteCast, a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago”—more than any other demographic.
A ”Difficult” Situation
Nadia Richardson-Johnson, Ph.D., a Birmingham-based professor and diversity consultant, as well as founder and CEO of the Black Women’s Mental Health Institute (BWMHI), said, “The hateful, racist, and sexist rhetoric of this campaign wreaked havoc on the mental health and well-being of Black women.”
“The hope that Black women had and the optimism in regard to the historic opportunity to finally have a Black female president was a lot,” she added. “It was not only difficult to have that shot down but [also difficult to see] the way it was shot down.”
Richardson-Johnson, who held a Black Women’s Vote Debrief event on Thursday, November 14, said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the nonpartisan BWMHI. It was disturbing to hear the “questioning of [Harris’s] qualifications, the questioning of her ethnicity, the questioning of so many things about her personally, which is not uncommon in political campaigns, but it’s the racist and sexist undertones of those comments that Black women by large took personally,” she said.
Even though many Black women didn’t get the outcome they expected, the question now is, ‘How do you prepare for next four years?’” said Crystal Mullen-Johnson, CEO and founder of Strive Counseling Services in downtown Birmingham.
Coping Strategies
The most important thing is “to understand your values and live up to them,” said Mullen-Johnson, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 20 years of experience in providing counseling.
“I think that is critical in terms of who we are and who we desire to become in the future, and it greatly impacts how we interact with others. We want to have positive interactions and be positive in those interactions. That’s number one,” she said.
Mullen-Johnson added, “It’s also important to practice self-care. That can be inclusive of exercise, journaling, meditating, and spending time with people you identify with or those you want to continue to grow and cultivate relationships with.”
In the current political climate, there is a chance for tensions to increase, but Mullen-Johnson said the key to keeping the peace is “to stay calm and regulate your emotions when tension arises.”
“Be cautious not to personalize everything you are exposed to. You may encounter racial tensions, especially now more than ever. You don’t have to allow those negative labels to impact who you are. Know who you are—and when you know who you are you can be confident in that space. Set boundaries, as well. I think that is also important,” Mullen-Johnson advised.
National Impact
The sentiments of Coleman, Richardson-Johnson, and Mullen-Johnson have been echoed by Black women across the nation.
For example, New York State Sen. Samra Brouk, who chairs her state’s Senate Mental Health Committee, said in the New York Amsterdam News article, “The mental health impact of this election cannot be overstated, especially where it concerns women of color. As a Black mother and an elected official, I can relate to feeling stressed, frustrated, or fearful about our future. I will continue to fight to secure mental health resources, improve maternal health outcomes, and uplift our young people so we can ease community burdens and help our most vulnerable individuals.”
In that same article, New York State Sen. Lea Webb, who chairs the Women’s Issues Committee, won her re-election to office in Ithaca, New York, on Election Day, said, “As Black women, we often bear some of the largest disparities in [issue areas like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, lupus and auto-immune diseases, and several types of cancer], and are often the most impacted, so the gravity of that, along with figuring out ‘where do we go from here,’ is most certainly concerning. … I’ve just been continuing to surround myself with folks who are also doing the good work and definitely trying to take time for reflection and self care.”
Updated at 8:30 on 11/19/2024 to correct source of quotes.
