Guest post: When Millions March: A Reflection on Race, Power, and the Limits of “Indivisible” Solidarity

A woman "raised in the long shadow of America’s racial history and its present-day contradictions" reflects on what "No Kings" is lacking

My friend Sevgi Fernandez, who has been a tireless activist for social justice and the rights of the marginalized through her Together We Stand organization, posted this thoughtful essay on the “No Kings” marches and what they’re lacking when it comes to diversity, representation and more. It so moved me that I wanted to share it with my Substack subscribers. I hope you take the time to read what she says here and reflect on the powerful points she makes from the perspective of Black and Brown residents who struggle with white-led movements that “often do not reflect the communities who have been most consistently impacted by state violence and structural inequity.”

March 29, 2026

By Sevgi Fernandez

I am a mixed woman, Black and white, with a Black father, raised in the long shadow of America’s racial history and its present-day contradictions. I write this not as an outsider observing a movement, but as someone who has spent my life navigating the spaces between communities that are often asked to stand together, but rarely experience justice together.

Recently, I’ve been watching the rapid expansion of political mobilization through organizations like Indivisible and the surge of mass protests often framed under slogans like “No Kings” and “No Fascism.” Across the country, I’ve seen repeated marches and growing mass mobilization under these banners. In many places, Indivisible chapters are overwhelmingly white, often more than 90%.

And I find myself sitting with a difficult question: Why does this movement struggle so deeply with racial diversity, even as it grows in numbers and visibility?

A movement awakens, but selectively

Since what many call “Trump 2.0,” white America has been visibly shaken by policy changes and political developments that feel new, destabilizing and urgent. In response, we’ve seen an extraordinary level of organizing, repeated marches, mass gatherings and unprecedented turnout in some places.

But for many Black and Brown communities, none of this is new.

Systemic injustice is not a recent disruption. It is the structure we have lived under since European colonization of the Americas. It is centuries of displacement, violence, policing, surveillance, exclusion and economic extraction. It is not episodic; it is continuous.

So when I see a surge of urgency now, I cannot help but ask: Why does it take disruption to white America’s comfort for mass mobilization to feel necessary?

The absence that shapes the room

Black and Brown communities have always had to show up for ourselves, every decade, every generation, every crisis. There has never been the luxury of waiting for mass solidarity to arrive.

And yet, movements like Indivisible often do not reflect the communities who have been most consistently impacted by state violence and structural inequity.

This is not only about representation. It is about trust, history, and action.

Yes, there are meaningful efforts in some chapters, supporting undocumented immigrants, participating in ICE court support, and building alliances in specific spaces. These matter; they are real.

But they exist alongside a broader pattern, Black and Brown communities being asked to join movements that do not consistently show up for them when the crisis is not newly visible to others.

We have watched Black children killed by police for centuries. We continue to watch it now. And yet, we do not see the same sustained, mass mobilization in response.

That absence is not neutral. It is felt.

Symbols without memory

At one recent march, I saw a banner at the front of the crowd, “Power to the People.” It was being carried primarily by white participants, with one Asian person among them, marching through a historically Black city.

Those words carry deep historical weight. They are rooted in the legacy of the Black Panther Party and generations of Black liberation struggle.

Seeing them lifted without that context, without visible connection to the communities that created and carried them through real risk, raised something in me that is difficult to fully articulate. Not just discomfort, but a recognition of how easily radical language can become detached from its origin.

The joke that wasn’t funny

At one point, I heard someone say, “At least Trump gave us something to come out here for.”

People laughed.

Maybe it was meant lightly. Maybe it was said without harmful intent.

But it landed differently in me.

Because for many of us, there has always been “something to come out here for.” The difference is not the presence of injustice; it is whose injustice is finally being seen as urgent.

That moment felt like another brick in a long-standing wall, between movements like Indivisible, predominantly white activist spaces, and the communities of color who have been fighting this battle long before it became widely visible to others.

The question of performative solidarity

This is where my frustration lives, not in the existence of protest, but in its unevenness.

How do we reconcile the ability to mobilize mass participation in response to newly felt political threat, while not showing up in comparable numbers for communities that have been enduring harm for generations?

How do we not ask whether some of this is, at least in part, performative, driven by visibility, urgency and proximity to discomfort, rather than sustained commitment to racial justice?

Because if the same infrastructure that can generate mass marches could be consistently directed toward Black and Brown-led organizations, mutual aid networks, immigrant defense, and community-based safety efforts, the landscape of power in this country would look different.

That capacity exists.

The question is whether it is being fully used in solidarity, or only in moments when the impact is widely felt by those newly engaged.

What real solidarity requires

This is not a call to withdraw. It is a call to deepen.

Real solidarity is not attendance. It is consistency.

It is not only showing up when policies affect you directly. It is showing up when they have always affected others.

It is not adopting language from movements of color without honoring their roots. It is listening, following, funding, and stepping back when necessary so that leadership is not extracted but supported.

If movements like Indivisible want to become truly multiracial and truly transformative, the work is not cosmetic. It is structural.

It requires confronting why Black and Brown communities are not just underrepresented, but often unconvinced.

Because we have seen moments like this before.

And we are still here.

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I first got to know Sevgi when she and Together We Stand organized a Black Lives Matter march in my hometown of Martinez in 2020 after the defacing of a Black Lives Matter mural that was created following the murder of George Floyd. She later helped my daughter organize a rally for Martinez high school students to address racism in our schools, and has remained active in Martinez in the years since, playing a leading role in launching our community’s first Juneteenth and Pride celebrations, and helping our city to truly embrace principles of diversity, equity and inclusion in meaningful ways. It’s been a great privilege to know and work with her as I’ve continued on my own journey of reflecting on issues of race, diversity, privilege and implicit bias in my own life.

Sevgi and Indivisible ReSisters are organizing a workshop on April 26 to address the issue of implicit bias and community building. Those interested can learn more and sign up by clicking here.