Today is Inauguration Day.

Dignity and Power Now acknowledges that today an important change is taking place at the Federal level. We are crystal clear about the many harms in the legislative and political records of the new administration. They have both caused lasting damage on criminal legal issues and immigration issues. Acknowledging this, we at Dignity and Power Now are also feeling buoyed with cautious optimism about the end of the Trump Administration.

Trump’s racist tirades, dictatorial behavior, and harmful policies have caused deep, lasting harm to our communities. He and his Administration have made insidious, retroactive changes to Federal Policy and to the Supreme Court that will take years to undo. Ending Trump’s attempt at a fascist regime — one that we know emboldened white supremacist violence worldwide — is a critical step forward for our progressive social movements. The Trump Administration’s sweeping cuts to our social safety net, and attempts to roll back the clock on human rights and racial, economic, and gender justice work, have reached an end. Despite numerous unjust and illegal attempts at voter suppression of our people from the right  — and despite the fact that the right has worked to strip the voting rights of those of us who are incarcerated and undocumented — they couldn’t stop us. Voters demanded that Trump’s unjust, racist, and immoral Administration be ousted in favor of justice.

When we look at the records of the Biden-Harris Administration, we know that intractable, lasting harm has been caused by the 1994 Crime Bill authored by then-Senator Joe Biden. We also know that former Senator and former District Attorney Harris caused long-term damage in her career as a prosecutor. We must remember these damaging parts of the new Democratic Presidential Administrations’ record, AND we know that our movements have gained unstoppable momentum over the past thirty years. 

Through our relentless advocacy and truth-telling, we have shown clearly the harms of Federal “tough-on-crime” policies and policies that criminalize migration. Because we have made known this trauma through our endless storytelling and organizing, we’ve ended the era where Democratic public officials can use dog whistle “tough-on-crime” and anti-immigrant rhetoric to appeal to a white establishment base to get elected. What’s more, newly elected officials are entering office after one of the longest and most sustained #BlackLivesMatter civil uprisings towards justice in history, and the pressure that movement organizers and uprisers have applied during this period has transformed the landscape for legislators.

As a result of our recent and long-term movement gains, the new Administration has pledged more progressive policies in the criminal legal arena, and in the areas of immigration policy, economic justice, health care policy, housing policy, and employment development policy, to name a few. The pressure we apply at the Federal level to ensure a progressive swing to federal policy will have a material impact on our people. We pledge to remain engaged to ensure that our movement policy analysis is as razor-sharp as it needs to be given the stakes. 

We know that our role as social movement organizers and activists is to hold the presidential Administration, and all elected officials, accountable. One such example of a national justice and accountability effort is the BREATHE Act, a federal bill  that our very own founder and Board Member, Patrisse Cullors, has co-authored in partnership with The Movement for Black Lives. The BREATHE Act, “divests our taxpayer dollars from brutal and discriminatory policing and invests in a new vision of public safety—a vision that answers the call to defund the police and allows all communities to finally BREATHE free.” Passing this Act will be far easier with a Democratic administration in place — so we look forward to celebrating its passage together imminently, and to starting an era that #DefendsBlackLife and reimagines public safety.

Today, we celebrate the end of an era of harm that emboldened white supremacist nationalists, homophobes, misogynists and the economic elite/ billionaire class. We pledge to move forward with an eye towards accountability and the implementation of progressive policies led by and centering us: Black and Brown folks, working class people, Muslims, queer people, immigrants, disabled people, femmes, undocumented people, young people, and all those that systems of oppression attempt to marginalize.

Dignity and Power Now is in this struggle with you; we will keep fighting together. 

Read the BREATHE Act and sign up to be a co-sponsor here.