#Back2TheBasics
- Dr. Eddie & Dr. Rita
- Aug 7, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 8, 2025
By Dr. Eddie and Dr. Rita
We are not in this position because of one person. Please, stop blaming a person and calling people stupid and/or crazy. We are facing some serious changes and consequences due to executive orders, Project 2025, and #Moore. Fam, this is not the result of one person or election cycle.
This is because of long-term strategic planning for a small and specific population of people (1%). This success has been built upon a bedrock of white supremacy ideology and policies since our nation was founded. Now it’s 2025, and too many of us feel like we are facing ideas and policies we thought only existed in the past. Listen Fam, these challenges are not new challenges. Now is the time to acknowledge that we are either in denial, incompetent, or just flat out #chickensh!t when it comes to facing and fighting white supremacy ideology and policies. When the people are in denial, uninformed, and/or afraid, the system(s) is left to succeed by doing exactly what it was designed to do. We can’t continue to pretend it’s one person, one election, or one party. It’s time to accept the tough truth: White supremacy ideology is at the very root of how our great nation was designed. Today, we are facing ongoing efforts to strengthen power and expand resources within a small and specific group of people.
White supremacy ideology feeds on mass fear and lack of knowledge. Fam, it’s time for us to step up, stand up, and fight white supremacy ideology. We suggest a simple resistance strategy during these times. #Back2TheBasics! Let’s go old school. We must remember the lessons learned from our ancestors standing up against both physical violence and devastating policies fueled by white supremacy ideology. What have we learned?
The Rise of Jim Crow. in 1877 was a backlash of equal weight of what we are witnessing now. It was a massive dialing-back of Reconstruction, the most progressive of US eras that followed the Civil War. Knowing that this is not the first time our country has survived a backlash is an important perspective. Backlash is inherent in social change.
Backlash is inherent in social change. It is not an exception. It is the rule. If you are pursuing justice you will piss people off, make some uncomfortable, and possibly lose friends, partners, and family members. That is personal backlash. We are also seeing and experiencing institutional and/or systemic backlash, such as but not limited to lawsuits, executive orders, funding cuts, ice raids, and mass firings.
The inevitability of backlash is why Martin Luther King said: "We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." He also said, "It is easy to get discouraged, in times like these, but we must not give into despair. We must draw from the strength of many generations of ancestors and hold the vision of what is possible for humanity when the future bends towards justice. We cannot give into despair. We must hold the vision."
Those of us who have been in the work for 30+ years know, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Our great nation has yet to truly reach the goals it set up years ago––Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness. In fact, many of our institutions were never set up to serve all of humanity. In fact, for decades the resistance has always been real consistent––perhaps at times, more subtle, but always real consistent. After all this time and all this up and down, we offer this social justice action plan: Let’s Get #Back2TheBasics!
That’s right, it’s time to go #OldSchool. We must tap into the motivation, endurance, determination, wisdom, resilience and love used by our ancestors/elders to better understand the sacrifice and commitment necessary to fight white supremacy ideology and policies. We must never forget those who were killed and/or injured. Our ancestors stayed the course, even in the face of tremendous personal and institutional opposition. #NowIsOurTime! We must know, study, and learn from them. We remember those ancestors/elders who were committed and modeled how to seek truth, speak truth, and take action. Please call out the names of folks, ancestors, and elders that impacted you in the #GoodOLDays. Here are some of ours:
David Walker (1796–1830) did not beg for justice—he demanded it. His Appeal called Black people to rise up and white people to repent before the blood of the enslaved flooded the streets.
John Brown (1800–1859) was a white abolitionist that opposed enslavement. He took a stand for whites to oppose an oppressive system as a way to liberate our own souls.
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) exposed the economic roots of lynching. After the Civil War Black men’s bodies were no longer precious because no longer owned by white men. It was not criminals who were being lynched, but Black business owners. Ida B Wells changed the narrative by exposing the cowardice and savagery of the white men who lynched and the courage of their victims.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) survived forced sterilization, beatings, and arrest—yet she never backed down. She reminded us that it is not only okay, but righteous, to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) walked into Congress unbought and unbossed, daring to dream of a Black woman in the White House. In 1972, she ran for president—not to win, but to shift what was even imaginable.
Lillian Smith (1897–1966) dared to love across color lines and expose white supremacy from inside its house. She shattered the Southern code of silence, writing the truth about internalized white supremacy in the white Southern tradition and its links with shame, sex, suppressed creativity, and normalized mediocrity.
Angela Y. Davis (1944– ) saw how the suppression of the Civil Rights Movement shifted to mass incarceration. When the CIA and COINTELPRO infiltrated the Black Panther Party, she exposed the system of mass incarceration—she gave the prison industrial complex a name.
Frances Cress Welsing (1935–2016) exposed white supremacy as a global ideology, not just a set of bad behaviors. Her analysis of interlocking systems replaced the lie of racial inferiority with a truth many still resist.
Na’im Akbar (1944– ) gave us the language to name the psychological chains that lingered long after the auction block disappeared. He called us to reclaim our minds, rewrite our self-worth, and root our healing in African-centered knowing.
bell hooks (1952–2021) dared speak about love in academic and political hallways. She called for eradicating domination in our relationships with our lovers, our children, our friends—she had us see love as a force of movement-building.
These are just a few of many, many elders, who lived or live to dream, convene, and co-create––over centuries. No matter the elder you remember or when you started to learn about their contribution, we must continue to read, know, and take action. NOW IS OUR TIME. It's our time to stand up, speak truth, and be at the forefront.
We each have influence. Convene with at least three others and build wherever and however you can. Do not get stopped by resistance and losses. If you lose at your city government, build at your place of worship. If you lose at your place of worship, build at your school. If you lose at your school, build at your dinner table. If you lose at your dinner table, build at your coffee shop. If you lose at your coffee shop, build on the corner. In times of crisis and challenge, we must build teams fueled with by competence, persistence, and resilience. And, since the arc is long, self-care is a must while we tend to the collective. When building, do not burn yourself out. Find places to restore and reload, even if sometimes it means checking out. Guided by our ancestors/elders and delivered by collective teams, the work continues.
Choose your three people, start planning, and build! Humanity cannot proceed forever in this direction. The tides do change!
Dr. Eddie Moore Jr.
Founder and Executive Director
Dr. Rita S. Fierro
Newsletter Editor
