Millions of Americans will protest Donald Trump’s presidential administration on Saturday, April 5.
But it’s likely that a significant group will be largely missing from the protests: Black Americans, who since the 2024 presidential election have been embracing a line of thought that best can be described using the acronym SYBADRN (which can be roughly translated as a direction to a Black person to “have a seat at this moment”). They say they want to focus on the issues most important to Black people instead of participating in performative protests without goals. And they’ve recommitted to this way of thinking following the administration targeting the National Museum of African American History and Culture in recent days.
“I’m not saying organized outrage doesn’t work. Y’all know I believe it absolutely does,” activist and writer Brittany Packnett Cunningham, known online as @mspackyetti, said in a passionate TikTok post. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t protect that building and everything in it and everybody in it. We absolutely have to. And we should always know our memory and the things made up of it made us a worthy people before we ever had a monument to ourselves.”
Groups including MoveOn and Indivisible organized what are expected to be thousands of people gathering for the April 5 People’s Veto Day events around the country. The event will be international; social media posts indicate potential related protests in London. The day’s main event will be a protest on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., according to Black Press USA.
Social media and texts push information about the protests to like-minded Americans as a way to tell Trump and businessman Elon Musk to keep their “HANDS OFF our Medicaid, Social Security, and communities.”
“We’re not waiting for someone to save us,” the organizers said in a prepared statement. “We’re taking action ourselves.”
Most recently, Trump, who has expressed animus toward diversity principles in the government and American life, issued an executive order Thursday calling for changes to the Smithsonian Museums for expressing “divisive” ideas. He specifically named the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the order.
Concern about the administration and its figureheads, Trump and Musk, is rising. On March 29, people gathered at about 200 Tesla dealerships throughout the U.S. as part of the “Tesla Takedown” protests against CEO Elon Musk and the role he has been playing in firing federal workers and cutting federal agencies, CNN reported.
Tesla, once a darling of the progressive, environmentally conscious left, now sees its market value slip as its electric cars become the target of anger and shunning by people angry at Musk for the role people he has hired are playing in mass federal firings and budget cuts.
For Black Americans, especially Black women, these protests are an opportunity to not be involved and to let other groups lead on these matters.
Their argument is that they — famously, 92% of Black women voters cast ballots for former Vice President Kamala Harris — protested with their votes in the 2024 election to preserve the nation and democracy, and that Black people are often first in the streets to protest injustice, bearing the brunt of arrests and targeted anti-protest violence. Other demographics, they say, didn’t do the same. They look pointedly at white women, who voted 53% in favor of Trump.
On April 5, they say, they will continue to rest and enjoy diversions from the protests.
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