Thousands of delegates from across the United States are gathered at the Times Square Sheraton Hotel in New York City. Perhaps more than at previous National Action Network conventions, this one comes at a dire moment in the organization’s 34-year history.
Donald Trump is now the 47th president of the United States, and in his first 71 days in office has waged open war on much of what this assembly holds most dear: democracy, civil rights, and the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The theme of the conference is “being a light in dark times” and aims to “strategize a path forward that preserves our nation’s progress in building a just and equitable society.”
The first panel today is on healthcare access for Americans of color, a basic issue to the African-American community which already experiences lower life expectancy and higher maternal mortality rates than white people, trends sure to deepen with a new Health and Human Services secretary with a racist history and ambition to cull tens of thousands of federal staff. The basics of life and death are on the table.
Not sidelined
Yet the panels and crowd do not seem to be sidelined by licking their wounds. Civil Rights attorney Benjamin Crump moderated a panel called “From Grief to Action: The Fight for Social Justice Continues” which features mainly those who have experienced the most devastating loss of all: the brutal, senseless killing of a child or a sibling due to police violence, vigilantism – most of all, racism.
The physical resemblance of their lost family members echoes in their own faces, but they hold themselves high. They are Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Pamela Dias, mother of AJ Owens; Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin; Wanda Cooper Jones, the mother of Ahmaud Arbery; Philonese Floyd, brother of George Floyd.
They were joined on stage by New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park 5, who lost seven years of his freedom and is now a power broker in Harlem.
Despite the immense pain that they carry, they are stalwart. “Nothing that we’re facing today in 2025 is greater than what our ancestors have overcome,” says Attorney Crump from the podium as he introduces the panelists to standing ovations.
Invoking the names of Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, and Malcolm X, Attorney Crump says there was never a better time for what he calls “that ‘by any means necessary’ mentality.”
The common theme of panelists was that the African-American community has withstood far greater challenges than Trump and still prevailed. “We are here because God said we should be,” Councilmember Salaam says to the audience. “God has broken and changed us and caused gold to be poured into the cracks, turned us into pieces of art… We need that 50,000-foot view that allows us to see 50, 100 years into the future, where we’re gonna be alright.”
“We are used to fighting,” Sybrina Fulton said. “We understand the assignment.”
Gwen Carr touches on similar points in her remarks. “Look to our ancestors. They didn’t have one-tenth of what we have to fight with. But they went without so that we can have. We have to remember whose shoulders we stand on. We built this country.”
Their call to action is likewise similar. From the mouths that have invited millions into the streets in protest to protect Black lives comes similar exhortations to boycott companies that do not respect Black lives. Panelists list off a handful of major concerns: Amazon, Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club.
“These [companies] are trying to eliminate you,” says Philonese Floyd, as justification as to why the boycott should stand. They are, after all, companies who have folded first to Trump’s demands to cease diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The energy in the room kicked into higher gear as the next panel, entitled “Defending Union Power: Protecting Workers’ Rights in Uncertain Times” assembled.
“How many of y’all are members of a union?” Rev. Al Sharpton, moderator for this panel, asked the audience, who promptly erupted into cheers. Sharpton introduced Claude Cummings Jr, president of the Communication Workers of America (CWA); Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE); Rebecca S. “Becky” Pringle, President of the National Education Association; Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); and Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers.
A remarkable panel
The labor panel was remarkable in that it did not appear in National Action Network schedules available online. But, as the panel made crystal clear to the audience, the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and Trump’s general bigotry cannot be separated from its attacks against organized labor.
“If this president and administration have their way, they will literally try to wipe labor out,” Rev. Sharpton warns. “If it was not for labor, there would not have been a civil rights movement. Let’s be clear.”
Rev. Sharpton then provided background history to the 1963 March on Washington to those present, though some must have surely been there in person. He explains how people who were showing up didn’t know they were there to hear Dr. King that day – they just knew that their unions had turned them out for racial equality and good jobs with dignity.
“They were organized by labor,” he says. “Our being a civil rights organization, we need to know that if labor goes, we go.”
The panelists then proceeded to articulate many of the ways that a new Trump administration aims to do just that: destruction of the National Labor Relations Board, slashing Medicaid and Social Security, revoking the bargaining rights for more than a million federal employees, and mass government layoffs.
Weingarten located the lie about efficiency and slothful government workers back four decades to Reagan, pointing out that the following Republican presidents have done nothing but worsen the public’s perception.
“We have to be on the defensive with court cases,” says Saunders of AFSCME. “More importantly, we need to go on the offense. It can’t just be labor. It’s got to be everybody.”
“People want the power that a union gives them,” Weingarten says. “All of us together need to fight back.”
Weingarten points out that the demoralization that some feel towards the lack of gains and the vulnerable position of the labor movement is real. She doesn’t shy away from it. She says that many are rightfully disappointed that “the arc that bends [towards justice] doesn’t bend fast enough. But Trump is counting on that disappointment. He’s counting on us being divided.”
Not shying away from calling Trump’s offensive what it really is, AFGE’s Everett Kelly has just one word to describe Trump’s disrupting social security, the Veterans Affairs administration, and collective bargaining: “evil.” The answer? Mobilization. He holds up a postcard exhorting the audience to call their representatives to object to the Trump agenda. “We need to stand up in the streets.”
Rebecca Pringle of NEA sums up the asks. “There will be big mobilizations on May 1st,” she says, alluding to International Workers Day. The crowd erupts into cheers. But until that day, and after, “I need you to stand in your power.”
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