Keeping It Together After Election Day. Again.

A crew at Virginia Union University Homecoming after swinging by the Harris-Walz table at the tailgate. Richmond, VA. 2 November 2024.

For weeks, I have started and stopped writing preelection posts. I’m trying again.

There's no more room for anger and fear in my head and heart, even though more is surely on the way after November 5.

People who support the rule of law, human rights for all, honesty, and common decency fear what may happen if one party and its leader—a 21st-century Father Charles Coughlin-George Lincoln Rockwell-George Wallace who’s learned the lessons of Barry Goldwater, Lee Atwater, and Roy Cohn—wins. Play to the white majority's fears and prejudices. That’s been a winning strategy for generations. We’re exhausted and dispirited by the other party's historic tendency to invite some of us aboard the bus, but then toss the less-favored under the wheels. It was the Negroes (and so many others) not too long ago, now it's Palestinians. And not just under the wheels, but under the tank treads and "small diameter bombs, joint direct attack munition (JDAM) guidance kits, missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome system, artillery shells and armoured vehicles," according to SIPRI. We will do something to stop this, whoever wins.

All that said, I resolve not to be crushed after November 5, regardless of what happens. I’m a solitary guy, in general, but I know the power of community. It will be there; and we will make it bigger.

Yesterday, I dropped in on Homecoming Day at Virginia Union University, a historically Black college here in Richmond. Folks were resplendent in their Black Greek gear. Huguenot High School's Army JROTC was there in all their multiracialness, led by Sgt. Major (Ret.) Bernard Branch. He's 78 years old, “same age as Donald Trump,” he told me. Branch served in Vietnam. Trump skipped out, he reminded me, "something about bone spurs," he said. And lots of money, of course. The Harris-Walz campaign had a low-key operation going on amidst all the BBQing, representing for Dems, as imperfect as they are. All of this was a reminder to me that traditions and rituals hold Black folk together, give strength.

Photo opp during Virginia Union University’s Homecoming. Richmond, VA, 2 November 2024.

Vietnam War vet Sgt. Major Bernard Branch wrangling the Huguenot High School JROTC contingent at VUU Homecoming. Richmond, VA. 2 November 2024.

Three generations: Charmaine Davis (seated in center) poses with granddaughter Logan Jefferson (l’il squirt on the left) and Stephanie Jefferson, her daughter (and Logan’s mom). Harris-Walz campaign staffer Isaiah Lee snaps the photo during VUU Homecoming festivities. Richmond, VA, 2 November 2024.

Just a little over eight years ago, right after Election Day, I flew from Richmond straight into the arms of hundreds of gobsmacked progressives—LGBTQIA+, multiethnic-racial-generational folk—at Race Forward's Facing Race conference in Atlanta.

Audience folk at Race Forward’s Facing Race conference. Atlanta, 11 November 2016.

Protesters hit th4e streets during Facing Race conference. Atlanta, 10 November 2016.

I wrote about the conference after it wrapped up.

I brought home lots of photos I'm proud of—stay tuned for these—but no magical answers to the question: How do we approach a Trump presidency? That said, I got inspired by the brilliance and humility of presenters such as Roxane Gay, Malkia Cyril, Rinku Sen, Linda Sarsour, and, of course Michelle Alexander. As I crawled around the floor, lining up compositions while trying to be respectful of the speakers, I listened and watched. The watching was just as important as the listening because I was watching these people listen. They spoke, yes, but they listened closely. We may see Alexander as an anti-mass incarceration rockstar. I watched her do what needs to be done: sit in rooms, at tables, shoulder to shoulder with people for whom a Trump presidency poses a clear and present danger—and for whom the status quo is pretty awful, too. She sat and shared with queer, trans, black, Latino, Muslim, Asian, native, white organizers. We hear lots of talk of intersectionality. To see it, for real, is power, is sustenance. Folks were not uniting around their outsider or threatened status. They were considering and debating possible tactics and strategies around their common mission for human justice, dignity, equality. They modeled a movement that requires us—me—to first question how progressive, how truly committed to justice we are (I am). It requires us to consider who we see as beyond the pale—trans folks, undocumented folks, Muslims, people who marry "outside the race"—and why. Is it fear? Is it bias? I know I have work to do to understand, confront, and defeat my biases. I'm taking it, because I share these goals, that mission. Our future is not ordained by the election of a demonstrably hateful, mendacious, amoral, anti-intellectual and anti-empirical, misogynist man—and, to borrow from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one who has repeatedly spewed "objectively racist" statements and has proposed policies in that spirit. If we come together, the future is ours. Now: Back to work.

Rinsing (with water, only ever water) the grave marker for Mr. James Collier (b. 1891; d. 1924) after unearthing it at Evergreen Cemetery, Richmond, VA. 26 October 2024

Dennis plants a flag at the grave of World War I veteran Edward Drummond (b. 1894; d. 1963) in the heavily overgrown western section of Evergreen Cemetery. Veterans Day. Richmond, VA, 11 November 2023.

Our cemetery crew is a disparate one. We’re white and Black, youngish and less youngish, but we have spent more than a decade working side by side reclaiming land and Black history. We have a broader crew of volunteers around us whose politics might not be mine, but they’re there for us and with us. Dennis, our open carry veteran, will be at East End and Evergreen on Veterans Day as sure as the sun will rise. He’s been at it for longer than we have. Or not. He’ll bring his team, one of whom sported a “Let’s Go, Brandon” sticker on his truck last year. And he’ll come with active-duty soldiers from Ft. Gregg-Adams. They’ll plant a flag on every grave of each Black veteran they can find. Dennis will tell his people about the sacrifice, hardships, and valor of these African American service members. And he’ll mean it. That much I have learned about him. I’m looking forward to seeing him next week.