Liberation means having full autonomy over our bodies, gender, lives, families, and communities. Groundswell grantees organize to make that possible inside and outside of electoral politics.Yamani Yansá Hernandez
Groundswell CEO
Democracy Must Include Black Liberation
By Yamani Yansá Hernandez
Yamani Yansá Hernandez (she/they) is the CEO of Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund, one of the largest funders of women of color-led organizing in the United States and one of the oldest funders of the Reproductive Justice (RJ) Movement.
It’s Black August, a time to pay homage to Black freedom fighters who came before us and those who are leading the way. In philanthropy, August is also a time to elevate Black feminist organizing, giving, and funding equity through Black Philanthropy Month.
When I think about Black feminist freedom fighters, I think about Assata Shakur. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Shakur learned from her grandmother’s survival skills and personal dignity that no matter what, you hold your head up high, especially with white people. Like many young people then and now, Shakur educated herself and began to question the United States government, its role in war and violence, and the underpinnings of white supremacy in all systems.
In 1973, Shakur and two of her comrades were stopped by state troopers for faulty tail lights. The officers escalated the situation, as they still do now, and led to Shakur being shot in the stomach, her friend, and one of the state troopers dead. Despite forensic evidence backing Shakur’s account of self-defense, she was convicted for a crime she didn’t commit, a result of an unfair and unjust trial. Today, she lives in exile in Cuba.
I think about Shakur’s family, her children, her grandchildren, and what it means to be a cis or trans Black woman in America today. I think about the future of this country. In the fight to resist Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda by the Heritage Foundation, there is little space for us to rest and mourn as we are charged with “saving democracy.”
But to be a Black feminist in America is to hold two truths – that at the same time Kamala Harris, a bi-racial Black and South Asian woman, is positioned to be the Democratic nominee for President, Sonya Massey, a Black disabled woman in my home state of Illinois, was murdered in her kitchen by law enforcement because she simply asked for help.
There are thousands of Black Feminists devoting their lives to bringing their communities to the ballot. With unending threats to bodily autonomy, donors – and all wealth holders – must understand the grieving required to sustain the fight for democracy.
I believe Shakur would agree that we are fighting the very same injustices that led to her exile. Challenging systemic racism is a lifelong endeavor fueled by grief, loss, and a desire for liberation.
As one of the country’s oldest intermediary funders of reproductive justice, Groundswell Fund has a unique vantage point in the world of high net-worth donors and philanthropic institutions and its ever-shifting approach to protecting and strengthening democracy. We are often the bridge between those who give and receive grants. We educate donors about women, trans and gender-expansive people of color-led grassroots organizations, and why their sustainability, capacity building, and long-term survival are critical to Black liberation and the libratory promise of a multi-racial feminist democracy.
Like Assata Shakur, our grantees are fighting for Black liberation and collective liberation. They deeply understand how the work of reproductive justice is also the work of democracy. The frantic calls to “save democracy” from those so far removed from the battlelines feel insincere and short-sighted. To actualize multiracial democracy, we need first to acknowledge that the fight for collective liberation is grueling and painful and leaving far too many people still suffering.
People need time to grieve in tandem with designing strategies to get out the vote.
As Malkia Devich Cyril said, “Only through the compassion and loneliness and love inherent in grief can we forge a world out of the fire that will not replicate ancient hierarchies.”
For democracy to ring true, our people must also see a real material change in their lives. That change happens by supporting those at the sharpest crosshairs of race and gender.
The Black Trans Fund, an incubated project of Groundswell Fund led by Bré Rivera, is the first in the country to build the capacity of Black trans leaders by focusing on liberation and joy. Black Trans Fund grantee The Brown Boi Project is a grassroots community organization of Black and gender-expansive people of color, predominantly identifying as masculine of center, transmasculine, two-spirit people, and allies who share a commitment to changing how communities of color talk about gender.
They develop leaders who bring a strong racial and gender justice lens to their work. Through leadership development, network resilience cultivation, healing justice, financial education, and exposure to community organizing, The Brown Boi Project cultivates safe spaces to explore and develop liberatory frameworks around gender.
We see profoundly impactful work in the South and the Midwest through our Liberation Fund. In 2023, after years of work to support the Erase the Gang Database coalition, grantee partner BYP100, and community organizations celebrated a vote by Chicago’s Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability to erase the city’s racist and ineffective gang database. This moment was years in the making after Chicagoans across the city made their voices loud and clear that they do not support a system that targets and criminalizes Black and brown people.
Community groups held rallies, protests, and press conferences; signed petitions; and filed lawsuits to end the database, which was deemed ineffective by the city’s own Inspector General in an April 2019 audit. Though this is just the first step to ending the city’s harmful surveillance practices, BYP100 is committed to ensuring no other databases are created and that those harmed by this system are made whole again.
While the threats to bodily autonomy, clean air and water, and good jobs have never been more dire – democracy has never been accessible to people of color. We are continually blocked from voting in new and insidious ways, going back as far as the beginning of this country, particularly in an election system that outweighs its own popular vote.
There remains a huge disconnect between how donors and grantees understand the problem of threats to democracy and the solutions required.
The racialized wealth and privilege that constructed the philanthropy sector makes it the least equipped to honor the brutal stamina of the plight for justice. How else can we explain how philanthropic donations are decreasing despite skyrocketing financial returns at the doorstep of a catastrophically important election? And yet, this sector has the means to power and protect our multi-racial democracy.
The threats to people who look like me being able to feel safe in our skin, our bodies, and our identities are very real. When democracy feels tenuous, especially in the midst of this presidential election, I invite you to call in the legacy of Assata Shakur and the Black Feminist freedom fighters of today and let the grief from Sonya Massey’s death and the thousands of Black people killed by police fuel your action to change these systems.
As funders, let’s power the health and sustainability of Black-led movements, including the human beings who make them possible. This November, many things are on the ballot, including the continued fight for Black liberation.
The philanthropic sector must boldly invest in grassroots organizing and trust those living in the crosshairs of race, class, and gender injustices. They often have the sharpest insight into systemic oppression, the best solutions for dismantling it for all people, and see clearly the path to a multi-racial feminist democracy.
Assata Shakur info:
http://www.assatashakur.org/escape.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/13/assata-shakur-civil-rights-activist-fbi-most-wanted