Meet the Organizers behind the 2nd Annual Defend Black Women March
Trinice McNally and Dr. Jaimee Swift are the organizers behind the 2nd Annual Defend Black Women March, which will take place from Friday, July 29th through Sunday, July 31st, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
The Defend Black Women march is in defense of and in solidarity with Black women and gender expansive radicals in Latin America and in the Caribbean. Their hope is to create a new world of possibilities by building solidarity across borders and boundaries. “Globally, Black women face unprecedented amounts of violence. That is why defending Black Women is not a slogan — it’s a political priority,” the founders remind us.
March co-founder, Trinice McNally, made a viral appearance on CNN after catching the attention of famed fashion designer and entrepreneur Virgil Abloh for her “I Support Black Women” (ISBW). The campaign aimed to uplift and center diverse Black women organizers contributing to social change in various fields of activism, art, education, spirituality and fashion. The Defend Black Women march soon followed and the ISBW campaign, in partnership with Off White, raised funds to build a physical location of the Black Women Radical School - a Black feminist advocacy organization created and founded by Dr. Jaimee Swift.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes, Head of Strategy and Impact at Feminist caught up with the founders to dive deeper into their inspiration behind the march and the importance of why now.
Q: JAIMEE, WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO FOUND BLACK WOMEN RADICALS & THE SCHOOL FOR BLACK FEMINIST POLITICS?
Jaimee Swift (JS): I created and founded Black Women Radicals (BWR) while I was in my Ph.D. program. I study Black Politics–specifically how Black feminists in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil resist and organize against femicide, anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ+ state, structural, and symbolic violence– and I noticed there was a void in the syllabi, in class discussions, and even in community conversations on how Black women and gender expansive people have contributed to and been at the vanguard of political thought and behavior. For me, you cannot talk about politics, power, and movement building and not mention Black women. This chronic erasure of Black women and gender expansive people’s leadership led me to create Black Women Radicals, which is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people’s activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora. One of the core pillars of BWR is the Database, which houses 100+ profiles on historical Black women leaders from around the world.
As a Black feminist political scientist, I am compelled and convicted by the mandate of pioneering political scientist Hanes Walton who urged us to expand the frame of reference of Black Politics—not only as a subfield of Political Science but as a liberatory theory and praxis for Black liberation. Because of Walton’s political evocation, I created the School for Black Feminist Politics (SBFP), the political education hub of BWR, which has a mission of expanding the frame of reference of Black Politics through the power of Black feminisms from intersectional, transnational, and multidisciplinary frameworks. Centering Black feminist politics, productions, and leadership in the universal power struggle for liberation in Black Politics and beyond, the SBFP invites and pays Black feminists from various backgrounds and professions to lead free teach-ins that empower Black feminist thought and behavior in Black Politics.
Q: TRINICE, AS THE CREATOR AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DEFEND BLACK WOMEN MARCH & THE I SUPPORT BLACK WOMEN CAMPAIGN, WHAT INSPIRED YOU?
Trinice McNally (TM): Marielle Franco said “to be a Black woman is to resist and survive all the time.” I have watched Black women all around me struggle and scrape not only to provide for their families, but also to fight for their dignity and joy. As I grew older, I knew this wasn’t happening in a siloed and people like my grandmother taught me the stories of Black Women who resisted. Specifically, Queen Nanny of the maroons. A fierce guerrilla warfare strategist, obeah woman, and Maroon leader. She helped to create the Winward Maroon settlement in Jamaica and led them into victory making several successful raids to free over 1,000 enslaved Africans. History like this inspired me to create initiatives and political efforts that center and amplify the voices of those most marginalized and exploited. Black women, girls, femmes and gender-expansive people. Because we’ve always been here, leading and fighting for the liberation. In the time of hyper-visibility and the hoarding of resources and opportunities, I wanted to expand how we think about organizing, and building power through centering the voices who are often silenced and/or erased.
Q: HOW DID YOU TWO BEGIN COLLABORATING TOGETHER? AND HOW HAS BEING IN COMMUNITY WITH EACH OTHER EXPANDED YOUR WORK?
TM: I met Jaimee in 2019 when she asked me to interview for the Black History tribute of Black Women Radicals. We hit it off so well, it was like we knew each other for awhile! Jaimee captured my experience as an educator, founder and Black migrant and I appreciated her kindness, brilliance and sharp analysis. We would later work together on HBCU organizing and Archival BWR programs. When I started the “I Support Black Women” campaign, I couldn’t think of a better initiative and person to raise money for and amplify. The School for Black Feminist Politics is a Black feminist political education initiative and hub that is committing to expanding from a transnational, intersectional, and multidisciplinary perspective. As an educator, I always dreamed of creating a school and when I learned of BWR’s school, I wanted to do anything I could to support it. For so long, Jaimee ran BWR alone with very little outside support as Black women often do. Being able to collaborate with her and to support her very revolutionary work has been an honor. Because we work so close together as comrades, we have become very good friends. Having trust and openness has created a very healing and special bond that is super grounding, and reminds me it’s imperative that we both continue our partnerships and friendships as it speaks to the power of building power, while in real community.
The “I Support Black Women” (ISBW) campaign was birthed after Trinice made a viral appearance on CNN after catching the attention of Virgil Abloh™. After months of building a friendship rooted in building projects committed to societal change, the campaign was solidified aiming to uplift and center diverse Black women organizers contributing to social change in various fields of activism, art, education, spirituality & fashion. Read more about the campaign here.
Black Women Radicals (BWR) is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting Black women and gender expansive people’s radical political activism. Visit the school here.
Q: MUCH OF YOUR WORK, IF NOT ALL, IS ROOTED IN THE BLACK FEMINIST TRADITION. WHAT DOES BLACK FEMINISM MEAN TO YOU?
JS: For me, I situate Black feminisms in the plural as a form of political and theoretical resistance. Oftentimes, there is the promotion or belief that the genealogy of Black feminist thought and behavior begins in academia or in the United States. So, I utilize Black feminisms to denote that just like being Black or Blackness are not a monolith, there are multifarious frameworks, histories, and praxes that comprise Black feminisms. To me, this is what Black feminisms mean – it is a liberatory political and theoretical tool that situates and centers the lives, plights, and resistance of Black women and gender expansive people across time, space, and place. Black feminisms traverse borders, binaries, and boundaries and centers those at the margins. Black feminisms catalyze radical possibilities, imaginations, joy, solidarities, futures, realities, and so much more.
Q: YOU ALL PARTNERED WITH EACH OTHER TO ORGANIZE THE 2ND ANNUAL DEFEND BLACK WOMEN MARCH IN DC JULY 29TH - JULY 31ST, WHAT IS ITS MISSION AND WHY NOW?
TM: We partnered with each other because we both are committed to disrupting the siloeing of US centered Black Feminisms. Out of all the places we have traveled to, Jaimee and I consider Brazil as one of the most influential places that politicized us. Jaimee’s dissertation was largely shaped by Marielle Franco’s life and work and for me personally, my time in Cachoeira expanded my understanding of the role of African Traditional Religions and Black resistance movements. The theme of the 2nd Annual Defend Black Women March is celebrating/centering the life of Marielle Franco and Black Women & Gender-Expansive people from Latin America and the Caribbean. It’s entitled “ Aśe to Axé” which is a Yorubá word used in both the Ifá and Candomblé religion that means life force, divine power, essence of being or existence, but also has a similar meaning to “amen.” When I co-hosted the first Defend Black Women March in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic and racial uprising, it was 6 days after Oluwatoyin Salau was murdered and a little bit after George Floyd’s murder. I didn’t feel like we were making enough noise for her and I also felt that her migrant identities also contributed to this. For so many people living here in the US, the concept of Blackness is a difficult one.
Marielle Franco (July 27, 1979–March 14, 2018) was an Afro-Brazilian bisexual feminist, activist, politician, and human rights defender. Known for her commitment of, to, and for Brazil’s most peripheral communities––Black, LGBTQ+, women, and poor––as a favelada (a person from and who lives in the favelas) Franco was born and raised in the Complexo da Maré, one of the largest shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro. Learn more about her legacy here.
Some American born Black folks feel that if you were born in any other place than America, then you’re not Black, but whatever that nation state is. I.e. Jamaican, Haitian etc. I think there’s power in all of us naming where our culture is from, but what’s missing is and gets lost is that all of us who live and have been reared in the Americas over the last 400+ years are mostly descendants of Chattel slavery. Meaning, we are inherently connected beyond pain, but lineages who forced across waters -- making the ways we experience systemic violence inextricably linked. Jaimee and I feel that if your organizing is not transnational in praxis and you’re unwilling to be in solidarity with comrades, histories and legacies across borders, then why call yourself a feminist? Specifically a Black Queer Feminist one. Globally, Black women are facing unparalleled amount of violence and here in the USA, more than 20 percent of Black women are raped during their lifetimes — a higher share than among women overall. In Brazil between 2005 and 2015, 61% of the women murdered by the police were Black women even though they represent 24.5% of the Brazilian population, and in Nigeria 30% of girls and women aged between 15 and 49 are victims of sexual abuse. Jaimee and I partnered to host the 2nd Annual Defend Black Women March because violence against Black women and gender expansive people is a global epidemic and there are too many Black women to name whose stories, wins and lives we do not know. The least we can do is share about their life, their work and legacy to honor and elevate their spirits.
Q: AS A MARCH DEDICATED TO BLACK WOMEN AND GENDER EXPANSIVE PEOPLE ACROSS THE DIASPORA, PARTICULARLY IN THE CARIBBEAN & LATIN AMERICA, WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF YOUR GREATEST WINS & CHALLENGES AS ORGANIZERS?
JS: One of our greatest wins is centering political education on and about Black feminist thought and behavior in Latin America and the Caribbean. To us, defending Black women is not just a slogan–it is a political priority. It is a demand. To me, a central component of and to defending Black women and gender expansive people is learning from and about each other. In order to truly build Black feminist solidarities, we must be humble and vigilant in listening and learning from each other, and that is what we are doing with the march weekend. What we are co-organizing is not just a rally and march, but we are also hosting a political education salon series as well.
Some of the challenges have been getting others to see how interconnected yet multifarious Black feminist histories, struggles, leadership, legacies, and realities are. For example, there is much discussion about abolition here in the United States. However, Black Brazilians have always been at the vanguard of abolition on various fronts. Black Brazilian feminist activist and scholar Beatriz Nascimento centered the power of the quilombos––maroon communities organized by enslaved Africans in Brazil–not only as autonomous and geographical spaces but also as integral to Black resistance, land rights, and justice across the African Diaspora. What would it look like to center Nascimento’s theorization and political understandings of quilombos in U.S.-based, Black political discussions on abolition? What would and does it look like to center historical and contemporary Black women leaders and in the Diaspora such as Maria Felipa de Olivera, Emilsen Manyoma, Josina Muthemba Machel, Renae Green, and Maria Clara Araújo dos Passos in these discussions? We must remember that we are not the only people doing this work, we are not the first, and we will not be the last.
The Political priorities of the 2nd Defend Black Women march are outlined at defendblackwomen.net
Q: IN THE SUMMER OF 2020, FOLLOWING THE MURDERS OF GEORGE FLOYD, BREONNA TAYLOR, AHMAUD ARBERY, ELIJAH MCLAIN AND COUNTLESS OTHERS, WE SAW A PUBLIC OUTCRY DEMANDING AN END TO ANTI-BLACKNESS AND STATE SANCTIONED POLICE VIOLENCE. THOSE WHO DREW A CONNECTION TO PATRIARCHAL VIOLENCE AND POLICE VIOLENCE, CALLED FOR AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH TO THEIR DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE AND EXPANDED THE COLLECTIVE INCLUSION OF WOMEN AND TRANS FOLKS. HOW CAN WE SUSTAIN THIS MOMENTUM AND ENSURE THE CONTINUED INCLUSION OF BLACK WOMEN AND GENDER EXPANSIVE PEOPLE?
JS: If we are truly dedicated to the praxis of Black feminisms, then it is our responsibility in our quest for liberation, that we are not leaving folks behind. Sustaining momentum is one thing, but being dedicated and committed to the work and calling of a radical and liberatory Black feminist politic is another thing. For me, it is not necessarily sustaining momentum, it is more so that we continue to embody and live out a Black feminist ethos in our everyday lives that is intersectional, radical, that resists gender binarism, that is not transphobic, and that is decolonial. We all have different responsibilities within the movement – some of us are organizers, writers, archivists, educators, transformative justice practitioners, and more. Rebellions and protests are a part of movement building and resistance and are one aspect of sustaining momentum but it is not the only strategy to do so. So, in our various capacities and in our communities, we must be diligent in centering Black women and gender expansive people’s lives, leadership, and legacies – not only when there is mainstream media coverage of anti-Black state violence or for diversity, equity, and inclusion means – but we must do it everyday. And we must not put a criteria on centering, defending, and supporting Black women and gender expansive people; meaning they do not need to fit a white supremacist and anti-Black respectability politic criteria in order to be defended and supported. We should be in defense and support Black women and gender expansive people for who they are.
Q: MUCH OF THIS WORK IS ENVISIONING A BRIGHTER, SAFER AND MORE LIBERATED FUTURE FOR BLACK WOMEN & GENDER EXPANSIVE PEOPLE IN AMERICA AND THROUGHOUT THE DIASPORA. WHAT DOES LIBERATION MEAN TO YOU?
JS: To me, liberation is not only the destruction of oppressive systems and forces that have and continue to marginalize Black people such as white supremacy, transphobia, patriarchal violence, misogynoir, anti-Blackness, militarism, policing, capitalism, reproductive injustices, and more, but it is also decolonizing and destructing those very same systems that we internalize and perpetuate on a daily basis. We cannot say that we want a brighter, safer, and more liberated present and future for Black women and gender expansive people and surveill and police each other in the process. Those of us who identify as Black feminists must do the critical work of decolonizing these systems we were born into and internalized in order for us to see the true liberation we need, desire, and want to see.
Melody Ehsani released “Black Women in Defiance,” a 10-piece collaborative range that celebrates activists and historical figures. The charm bracelet collection was created in partnership with “I Support Black Women” campaign founder Trinice McNally, Black Women Radicals founder Jaimee Swift, and media organization Breakthrough. Ehsani unveiled the capsule over the weekend during an exclusive invitation-only launch event at her Los Angeles flagship store. Read about it here.
Q: YOU ALL PARTNERED WITH THE WOMAN OF COLOR OWNED BRAND, MELODY EHSANI, TO HELP PROMOTE THE MARCH. TELL US A BIT ABOUT THAT.
TM: Partnering with Melody Ehsani on this Black Women in Defiance collaboration has been amazing experience. When I created the “I Support black Women” with Virgil Abloh last year, we hosted several salon series with Black Discourse, and the Streetwear & Solidarity was the one that included Melody Ehsani. It was here that our relationship with Mel really began and it’s been an amazing process and relationship ever since! Virgil has been the gift that keeps on giving, and speaks to what’s possible when we can struggle and desire to see eachother win and build power. Melody actually chose the bracelet as the object to communicate our message. Earlier In February this year, she launched a Black History Month Necklace, in honor of 15 game-changing Black Americans. We wanted to do something similar, but specifically honoring Black women from across the globe whose defiance left an imprint on society using jewelry. ME is known for its iconic jewelry, footwear, and clothing designs, all of which come with the message of women’s empowerment, social justice, and dismantling oppression. Melody has built a unique brand inspired by street culture, activism, and community building, with innovative design at the root. After sharing the goal of the Defend Black Women march with her, she decided that she wanted to support DBW by designing this piece. Jaimee and I worked together to select the 10 women that we felt spoke to the diasporic impact of “Black Women in Defiance: and we worked with her team to gather the popular education and visuals that aim to inspire each person wearing it.
Q: AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, HOW CAN PEOPLE GET INVOLVED & JOIN THE DEFEND BLACK WOMEN MARCH?
TM:There are many ways for people to plug-in and support the march! The first is by visiting our website @ https://defendblackwomen.net/ and registering. On the website, you’ll find a lot of information in how to learn more about Latin-American and Caribbean Black Women & Gender-expansive people who have led in defiance despite persecution, systemic violence and terrorism. If you feel compelled, and we hope you do, you can also donate to support the march! You can also follow @blackwomenradicals on Instagram and Twitter for quick real-time updates about the march and the work they’re doing!
HEADSHOTS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: SARA GÓMEZ, MARIELLE FRANCO, NANNY OF THE MAROONS, ANDAYE, OLUWATOYIN SALAU, MAMA TINGO, MARY JONES, bell hooks, and NEHANDA ABIODUN. THEIR HEADSHOTS ARE IN BLACK AND WHITE AND THEY ARE CONNECTED BY A COLORFUL MURAL BACKGROUND.
Join the historical 2nd annual Defend Black women march this july in washington dc
The Defend Black Women March will be held between Friday, July 29-Sunday, July 31, 2022 in Washington, D.C., at the Eaton Hotel