Scrolling through your newsfeed these days feels like an endless slide into a very depressive place – the violence of ICE being perpetrated on ordinary citizens, the number of industry and world leaders named in the Epstein files who are still yet to be held accountable, arts and academic institutions losing funding from a federal government that does not believe in diversity or equality, and women going through perimenopause and menopause learning how the healthcare system has failed to prioritize their health and wellbeing. You get the idea.
And yet, our rights and democracy are worth fighting for, but today they demand of us a bold vision that require bold leaders. For many Americans, especially Black women, injustice is nothing new and they know how to fight it. It is time for us learn from Black women leaders – those who have come before us and played key roles throughout history, and those who will be leading the way forward.
In her new book ‘The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (And What We Can Learn from Them)‘ (HarperCollins; May 5, 2026) political strategist Atima Omara argues that we can gather both inspiration and a strategic roadmap from the Black women who have navigated the country’s darkest times before.
She reclaims the term “instigator”—long weaponized against politically active Black women—and makes an urgent case: no one has more experience fighting assaults on our liberties and freedoms than Black women, who have been this country’s most oppressed citizens since its founding, as well as its most effective agents of democratic change. As progressives search for direction through this political moment, Atima offers a guide.
Drawing on her decades of political experience—as the first Black president of the Young Democrats of America, an elected DNC member, a gubernatorial aide, and a candidate for state legislative office—she positions contemporary leaders like Ilhan Omar and Jasmine Crockett as heirs to a powerful legacy.
From Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, readers learn how to build political power when you are not in power at the local level. From environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson, how to organize communities and demand accountability from those in power. From educator and political advisor Mary McLeod Bethune, how to use education, politics, and entrepreneurship to build infrastructure for communities in need.
Their lessons, Atima argues, can inform and empower all of us, energize a real inclusive progressive movement, and help transform a timid centrist Democratic Party into one that finally centers the strategy and leadership of its longest-standing, most committed members. In anticipation of the book’s May release, Atima shares more about her career, her perspective on Black women leading, and why she has hope for the future.
THE INSTIGATORS is both the title of your book and the term you use for Black women between the ages of 18 and 45. What defines this characterization for you? What about Black women’s role in American history makes this term so apt?
“Instigator” is often used negatively, but it means someone who initiates action, starts a movement, incites change. That’s what Black women throughout history have had to do to transform a nation whose laws and policies have harmed—and often still harm—them and their communities. And they often step into activism much earlier than others because inequity and injustice hit them earlier in life.
I think of Barbara Johns, a teenager in Southern Virginia in the 1950s. She wasn’t a student leader by choice, but sustained injustice pushed her to act: she attended a dilapidated, overcrowded school while white teenagers in her town attended a pristine, well-resourced one. The student strike she instigated became a legal case that led to Brown v. Board of Education and the legal desegregation of American schools. Johns exemplifies countless younger Black women throughout history and today.
You trace the lives of trailblazing Black women such as Shirley Chisholm; when you look at the Black women in politics today—Jasmine Crockett, Angela Alsobrooks, Ilhan Omar—what throughlines connect them to their predecessors?
Congresswomen like Crockett, Alsobrooks, and Omar are natural descendants of Chisholm because they know their communities intimately from their work as organizers, lawyers, and local officials—and use that knowledge to shape policy. Chisholm emerged from her community in the same way.
Unfortunately, they face the same challenges Chisholm did, though they’re sometimes less obvious today.
Their candidacies are questioned, as when Representative Crockett announced her Senate run. They struggle to secure support from party gatekeepers despite faithful service—both Senator Alsobrooks and Representative Omar had difficulty matching their opponents’ fundraising. And they face persistent racism and sexism as candidates and elected officials, as Alsobrooks experienced throughout her primary and general election campaigns.
You argue that Democratic leaders and donors repeatedly pull the Party toward the center, even when much of their base—especially Black women ages 18–45—pushes left. Party leaders claim the center is where the votes are. What are they missing?
Simply put, they’re neglecting—and thereby alienating—their base. What distinguishes the Republican Party and the conservative movement from Democrats, and what has made them successful, is that they first ensure their base is fully satisfied and committed. Only then do they reach for centrist voters. Politics is a margins game.
Democrats fail to do this. Too many progressive candidates conduct voter turnout operations in Black and brown communities only five weeks before an election—which feels annoying, if not insulting, to voters. Democrats default to the center first because it’s comfortable; because they believe Black voters, especially Black women, will turn out reliably without much outreach; and because organizing Black and brown communities into a multiracial coalition is hard work.
Black women confronting racist white men is not new, yet Donald Trump’s overt racism has been especially shocking. What do these new levels of attacks signify about how the Right views women of color in politics?
The brazen intensity of racism and misogyny from Trump and the right has proliferated because it has gone unchecked. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this work and life, it’s that very few people will defend Black women or other women of color’s honor and lives. MAGA is emboldened because they’ve gotten away with hatred before, and because their voters support this behavior. They’ve upped the ante simply because they can.
I also believe the ferocity of these attacks stems not just from racism and sexism, but from the fact that Black women are known to speak truth to power in this nation. If you destroy the person who has the strength to speak up, mobilize, and lead, you silence the discontented folks.
You ran for office in Virginia more than a decade ago and, in 2013, became the first Black president of the Young Democrats of America, earning a seat on the DNC’s executive committee. How did those experiences shape your political outlook and inform this book?
You gain insight into political thinking when you’re in the room where it happens. Watching how political leaders move, witnessing the zero-sum game of politics—especially in the nation’s capital—clarifies how people become cynical about making change, why they want to stay home and ask, “What’s the point?”
However, my experience also helped me understand the pain points and build a roadmap for making the change you want to see in your community or organization. Laying that out clearly was one of my goals for the book.
The Trump era has intensified debates over who belongs in America. MAGA envisions a white, Christian, nativist nation, while its opposition is largely multiracial and pro-immigration. Where do Black women fit within the left’s coalition?
According to how Democratic and progressive leaders still treat Black women, their role in the left’s coalition is being good soldiers—and not much else. How have we had discussions about the direction of the Democratic Party, campaign strategy, and policy priorities, yet the people brought into the room to lead those discussions are Ezra Klein, David Shor, and James Carville?
Black women are wanted for their service and time, but when they want to be at the table where decisions get made and to direct how dollars are spent, many get really uncomfortable. There are more Black women leading progressive advocacy organizations now, and more in office, but it took societal upheaval to get here. And it hasn’t been smooth sailing for many of these leaders, as they’ll tell you. We still have a long way to go.
As the American-born daughter of Ugandan immigrants, what priorities must we champion—and the Democratic Party embrace—to fully defend and represent the full spectrum of the Black community in America?
The Democratic Party and the broader progressive movement need to better understand the full spectrum of the Black community. You’ll always hear Black people say “we are not a monolith”—because we aren’t. Yet that’s not always factored into strategy. We live in urban, suburban, and rural America. Black people have descended from enslaved people whose families have been here for generations—but we are also from the Caribbean and Africa.
We are women, men, trans, non-binary, disabled, queer, lower-income, middle-income, and wealthy. What may unite us are common experiences of what it means to be Black in the United States—but that’s all. Shaping policies and strategies that speak to all aspects of who we are, as is done for white voters, is imperative. That means formulating a fair and comprehensive immigration plan, a climate policy that considers climate change’s unequal effects. Doing this will bring us closer to representing and defending the needs of the full spectrum of the Black community.
Nearly 250 years into U.S. history, the country has never had a Black woman governor, yet Kamala Harris became the presidential nominee of a major party. How did her candidacy and performance reshape your sense of what’s possible—and what’s next—for Black women in American politics?
The good news is that we now know millions of people will vote for a Black woman to be President of the United States. On average, Black women running for office struggle to raise competitive money, even when they have the networks to do so. Too many gatekeepers and key leaders won’t support them.
However, Harris’s presidential candidacy demonstrated the positions Black women leaders can achieve—and the scope of their impact—when they have the political apparatus behind them. I wonder every day how different her campaign would have looked had she run one centered on her own image and ideas, rather than one saddled with President Biden’s legacy and undermined by members of his team.
You can pre-order a copy of ‘The Instigators” How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (And What We Can Learn from Them)‘ now, and follow Atima Omara on Instagram, BlueSky Social, and get familiar with the book on her website.
