Black Abolitionists Lead Resistance to Trump's Use of Federal Police and ICE [View all]

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https://truthout.org/articles/black-abolitionists-lead-resistance-to-trumps-use-of-federal-police-and-ice/

Black Abolitionists Lead Resistance to Trump’s Use of Federal Police and ICE

Black-led abolitionist community defense organizations are organizing against Trump’s efforts to target DC and Chicago.

By Sonali Kolhatkar , TRUTHOUT
Published September 20, 2025

President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and immigration enforcement agents to the nation’s capital has sparked a mass movement. In Chicago, a city on which Trump has essentially declared war, the threat of deployment has generated a flurry of organizing, including a mass protest on September 6. In both D.C. and Chicago, Black activists who have a long history of opposing policing are playing leading roles in the resistance.

NeeNee Taylor is co-founder and executive director of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub, and co-founder and organizing director of the Free DC Project, an effort that launched in January 2025. A native of D.C., Taylor has been on the front lines of the resistance to federal police and the National Guard, and is familiar with politicians making claims of “crime” as justification for policing. According to Taylor, “Trump is at the point where he wants to make [up] numbers and he wants to show like, yeah, D.C. is full of crime.”

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It’s no wonder that, in Taylor’s words, “D.C. was already overpoliced.” She explained, “We have over 32 agencies that actually have oversight of the people in Washington, D.C. So what we didn’t need is more cops.” And now, with 2,000 additional National Guard troops and untold numbers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents patrolling D.C.’s streets, the city is crawling with armed agents of the state.

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Wallace sees the targeting of cities such as D.C. — a historically Black city — and Chicago — where nearly a third of the population is Black — as part of what he calls “the foundation of the American empire,” adding that, “it’s the nature of the United States particularly as it relates to the suffering of Black people. It has been chains and bondage since we got here,” he said.

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