August 22, 2025
Strategists feel it’s no surprise that Trump is stooping to new lows in his attacks on Black women and the cities they lead since they are breaking barriers that he can’t touch.
Since President Donald Trump started his second White House term, there has been one common denominator of the cities being attacked for lack of sharing common ground: they are all led by Black women, 19th News reports.
Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York City, and more have felt the wrath of Trump’s anti-Democratic, anti-diversity, anti-unity tactics under the leadership of strong Black women trying to lead the cities they love to grow. Shortly after his January 2025 inauguration, the president launched a massive anti-immigration campaign, targeting the City of Angels first. Mayor Karen Bass stood firm on the frontlines, coming face-to-face with federal agents seen harassing legal and illegal immigrants in addition to peaceful protestors.
He slowly made his way to the Midwest and East Coast, continuously battling New York Attorney General Letitia James, who hasn’t let go of her responsibility to hold the president accountable for his past alleged crimes. Most recently, he caused havoc in his own backyard of Washington D.C., led by Mayor Muriel Bowser, deploying troops of the National Guard and federal agents to take over for the Metropolitan Police Department to tackle the alleged growing crime in “Chocolate City.”
Political scientist at the College of the Holy Cross, Sydney Carr-Glenn feels it’s no surprise that Trump is stooping to new lows in his attacks on Black women and the cities they lead, since they are breaking barriers that he can’t touch.” “We have seen Black women really ascending to these roles of political prominence in recent years in ways we haven’t seen before,” she said, highlighting wins at the local, state, and federal level.
As high-profile critics like Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and not to mention the first Black women to serve as Vice President, Kamala Harris, she calls the reign of “sister” “an exciting time in our American government.” Trump feels the need to send a warning. “So, where is the next place to let the backlash flow? It’s in cities with very visible executives that are Black women,” she said.
“This is in many ways a political warning, a political message, to say to these Black women and other Black mayors and other women of color mayors, ‘Your leadership can be challenged, too.’”
The mayors and advocates aren’t blind to what’s taking place within White House walls. New York and Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Yvette Clarke, called the policing methods “blatantly racist and despicable power grab,” according to USA Today. Van R. Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, and president of the African American Mayors Association, said leaders like her can’t help but feel a type of way.” “We just can’t help but feel in some kind of way that we’re being specifically profiled,” Johnson said.
“That’s not right. That’s not fair. We want our federal government to work with us. We’re just a phone call away.”
The attacks also targeted members of Congress — like New Jersey’s Rep. LaMonica McIver, the first sitting member to be prosecuted by the Trump administration for standing up for her constituents, and Rep. Nicole Collier, who stood firm as Texas’ Republican leaders tried to monitor the movements of Democratic leaders.
However, Victoria Woodards, mayor of Tacoma, Washington, says that Black women mayors have no choice but to be resilient amid the harsh realities of balancing community needs on top of battling it out with state and federal governments. “These are women who, despite all of the things that have been in their way or barriers that have come to them, are still fighting the fight. They are still getting up every day and going to city hall,” Woodards said.
“They are still doing the jobs, because that’s what’s required of us.”
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