A new survey sheds light on the sentiments of Black women in the South, revealing that while they are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country and the economy under President Donald Trump, they remain just as motivated to vote and prioritize joy and peace.
The poll, Making Joy Possible: Black Women Voters in Mississippi, is conducted by The Highland Project, in partnership with brilliant corners Research & Strategies and Springboard to Opportunities. It finds that 89%, or 9 in 10, Black women living in the South say the country is heading in the wrong direction. However, unlike other groups, they remain highly motivated (75%) to participate in the 2026 midterm elections.
“What Black women are pointing to in terms of lack of economic mobility, they’re pointing to system failures, structural challenges with voting rights …but it is a sign about knowing that these systems are inextricably linked, that they need to show up and advocate for the vision that they’re seeing,” Gabrielle Wyatt, founder of The Highland Project, told theGrio.
Black women — 92% of whom voted for Kamala Harris over Trump in the 2024 election — have disproportionately suffered during Trump’s second term in office. The 47th president’s executive actions, including attacks on DEI, cuts to the federal workforce, safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP, and access to federal student loans, have left Black women most vulnerable in a rising affordability crisis. An estimated 300,000 Black women have lost their jobs since Trump returned to the White House–something critics say is by design.
While Black women were perceived as disillusioned after the 2024 election, in which a majority of the country voted in contrast to them, the survey’s sponsors say Black women, despite their hardships and frustrations, understand the assignment.
“What is that anger and that disillusionment going to gain? It won’t do anything,” Aisha Nyandoro, founder and CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit working to subsidize low-income residents in Jackson, Miss., told theGrio. “The beauty of living and growing up in the South is that you have a rich understanding of history, and when you have a rich understanding of history, you also know that you have a rich understanding of your responsibility, and so even though you can be frustrated, you understand what is to be lost.”
Understanding that history is probably why, among the issues most concerning to Black women in the South surveyed by The Highland Project, the very top issue is the erasure of Black history (71%), above things like lack of affordable health care (67%), the cost of basic needs (60%), and threats to voting rights (58%). The other top issues are the war in Iran (69%) and ICE or government agents violating rights and due process (67%).
“They are working double time to erase that history, to erase that knowing, and to take away our rights,” said Nyandoro. “They want the South to be disenfranchised because they know if the South is disenfranchised, the path forward for all of us will not be realized.”
Cornell Belcher, founder of brilliant corners Research & Strategies, told theGrio that he first picked up on the trend of Black women’s “anxiety” over censorship of Black history while polling voters in North Carolina several months ago.
“They were bringing up sort of censoring and book bans and names being taken off of buildings, and this sort of attack on Black history, and over the last year it’s been growing and growing,” said Belcher.
The Democratic pollster, who has worked with the presidential campaigns of former President Barack Obama, said it’s also not surprising that the Iran war was the second most important issue for Black women.
“We’ve seen in the past this conversation about spending resources on foreign policy in these wars that are desperately needed for issues within their communities,” explained Belcher.
Nyandoro says there’s a throughline between Black women’s concerns over the erasure of Black history and what’s happening in Iran and to immigrant communities.
“All of those are issues that impact everyone,” she told theGrio. “We are paying attention, and we understand what all of this means for all of us.”
Wyatt said the findings align with previous surveys conducted by The Highland Project, which showed that what keeps Black women up at night is “preserving the collective over the individual.”
As Black women remain the head of households and leaders in their communities, those surveyed in Mississippi name specific economic barriers to their mobility. Most named a lack of a good-paying job (38%), followed by unfair or rigged systems (32%), racism and discrimination (27%), and inadequate programs to help people in poverty (16%).
The Black women surveyed were also asked how they would use an extra $1,000 a month. They told The Highland Project that it would go toward immediate stability, such as basic expenses like housing and food, debt, and savings. The focus on extra cash payments aligns with Nyandoro’s work, whose nonprofit, Springboard to Opportunities, launched the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, a guaranteed basic income program.
Nyandoro, who champions a federal guaranteed income program, says it would not only help families who need it but also the community and the economy as a whole.
“In our research, we show that the individuals within our guaranteed income, that money turns around six times in a community, because on average the radius in which they’re traveling to spend their income is about 15 [miles],” she told theGrio. “We are unlocking possibility, because the piece that we don’t talk about with poverty enough, is that poverty is a thief of imagination, and poverty is a thief of time.”
The Highland Project survey also tracks Black women’s views around success versus joy, finding that for Black women in the South, the two are viewed differently. While they desire relief from economic strain and experiences of racism, distrust in systems that do not listen to them and their needs, Black women have a “deep desire for a life defined not only by survival or success, but by joy, peace, faith, family, and freedom,” the survey finds.
“Having enough money to live comfortably, scores higher for joy than it does for success, and that’s, I think, counterintuitive,” Belcher said of the data point. He told theGrio, “Money isn’t primarily about status, it’s also about peace of mind and the ability to enjoy life.” He added, “Joy is important…it’s important to understanding and meeting these women where they are, and giving them what they need.”
Wyatt from The Highland Project explained it this way: “They want to live lives where a rug can’t be pulled from underneath them… what they’re naming at the heart of that for them is family, it’s faith. It’s having a job that they enjoy, it’s having access to loving relationships and healthy foods.”
“While money was named as a key factor in stability and in peace, we did not hear Nlack women name everyone needs to be a billionaire,” she explained. “It was about their well-being, the future’s well-being, their ability to live their lives now freely, to care for their families, to rest.”
Nyandoro said that while joy is top of mind for Black women, it is something all Black Americans should strive to attain, no matter the political environment.
“Nobody just wants survival, that’s not what our ancestors died and fought for,” she told theGrio.
