We Have Seen Project 2025 Before
By: Dr. Olga Osby - Co-Founder, Clean Slate Behavioral Health Solutions
On a recent podcast, Joy-Ann Reid and National Security Expert Malcom Nance, talked about this timeline we are living through and how the Trump Administration is implementing policies outlined in the Heritage Foundation promoted Project 2025, published just before the 2024 elections. Joy Reid stated something that really struck me. She stated that in the Red States, those areas of the country that are known to heavily vote Republican and for Donald Tramp, millions of people have already been living out Project 2025 policies, and for Black people, these policies are nothing new. We have seen this before. That reality hit me like a ton of bricks. Because for the first time, I realized that I have been living in Project 2025 since 1960.
I was born in Louisiana in 1960 into a socio-economic and political system that they are now calling Project 2025. The segregation and alienation of people based on race, nationality, gender, social status, sexual orientation, and economic class pre-1960s is the America that Project 2025 seeks to return. This is when most MAGA followers, ultra-conservatives, and white supremist all think America was great; and, if they could use a time machine, they would take us all back. Black America knows all too well what it took to overturn the worst forms of pre-civil rights era systemic oppression. Over the past 65 years people put their bodies and lives on the line through various forms of civil disobedience. People organized and engaged in protest and resistance by marching in streets to overturn oppressive laws which were often met with threats and violence. Blood, sweat, and tears were shed to make this country live up to its founding principles and pledge to make every man, woman and child in this country equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
As a nation, we have been here before and were able to overcome some of the barriers created to keep the most marginalized groups in the country oppressed. We have seen voter suppression before. Let’s remember that the fight for the right to vote was a hard-fought battle by our fore-parents. Many worked for years for the right and did not live to experience it for themselves. The struggle continues through today and the effort to take that right away is stronger than ever.
We have seen the denial of education for the poor and people of color. We cannot forget that it was once illegal to teach a black person how to read and write. It was not until 1954 and efforts of attorneys with the NAACP legal defense to bring cases to overturn the denial of black students to attend whites only schools and universities. It took until the late 1970s to get education in this country open to all. Not that long ago in our nation’s timeline.
We have seen the denial of public support and limitations on the social safety net. Many do not realize that in 1935 when social security was enacted, there were barriers that prohibited people of color from accessing those benefits which were not lifted until the 1950s. There is a long history in this country of attempts to deny people of color benefits and services that would ease poverty. They were not deemed “worthy” of social welfare aid. This mindset continues, and we see the on-going efforts to deny aid to the poor but give billions in cuts to the wealth. This is not new.
We have seen large segments of the Black community in poverty. Our ancestors lived in many cases dire poverty. As a testament to their sheer will and resiliency, they not only survived those hardships and turbulent times, but they also thrived. Their children thrived. They learned tools and technics that kept their families fed and even managed to raise children who became educated and financially successful. Too many members of our community have forgotten what our ancestors had to do to survived.
We have seen the denial of health care. In 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr. stated before the Medical Committee for Human Rights, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane." The effort contained in the Trump Administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) that will rip access to health care from millions of children, the sick, and the elderly is one of the most insidious parts of the bill. Health care should be a right because it is ingrained in the US Constitution in the right to life. But the idea of kicking millions of Americans off Medicaid and the threat to cut Medicare is inhumane. This will cause more sickness and death. People will die because of this bill. This effort we must address and fight.
We have seen conservative politicians who use and abuse religion to justify their racism and inhumanity and to oppress those they view as unworthy. After the bill was passed in the House of Representatives, the most conservative Republicans gathered on the floor for prayer. Based on what we understand of the bill, and there are aspects that we are still not fully aware of the harms that will come, many have wondered what God were they praying too? What God would commend them for making the poor suffer and the rich richer? But we have seen this before as well, in that slave owners used the Bible to justify slavery and the Klan used religious symbols to declare themselves superior over Blacks, Jews and anyone who did not think like them. Today, we have those who call themselves Christian Nationalist, a “religion” that is more about creating a white nationalistic identity than being Christian. Christian Nationalist is merely a cover for those who use religion to hide their racism, sexism and classism. This bill will take school lunches from children, deny access to health care for the most vulnerable, and brutalize migrants seeking refuge from hostile and dangerous environments in their homeland (so much for the Bible’s call for followers of Christ to welcome the stranger). Where in the Bible are their actions promoted?
But as Kamala Harris and millions who voted for her declared, we’re not going back. We can return to the lessons and actions of our ancestors helped them to survive in times far more oppressive and dangerous for our race than now. But we will not go back to the policies that kept them oppressed and their lives in constant danger. We need to get back into our history as a people and the history of our families.
As individuals and a community, where do we go from here?
There is an attempt to erase our history so that we forget how we have survived and managed to thrive through oppression. Don’t let that happen. Talk about our history. Instead of buying useless toys and gifts for family and friends, buy books. Buy books on banned booklists. Hard copy books, e-books, library books – it does not matter. Let’s learn and teach our history.
Let’s keep the property that has been passed down in our family and ensure that it never leave our family. Make sure to put that land into family trusts and in legal wills. Find ways, as individuals or a family, to put that land to use as income or investment property to generate short-term wealth and pass along generational wealth. And when possible, buy more land. Land is wealth.
Our ancestors often used barter and trade among each other. We need to review that system and see how we can work with each other, build our resources and keep more of our wealth in our homes and community.
And lastly, now is a good time to revisit our family histories. Who are our family ancestors? What did they overcome? Collect family pictures and share photos among the family, and recount stories with other family members, especially children, about those in the family who have passed on. Talk to older family members about what they remember about how the family survived economic and socially hostile times. Too often, our families do not share the stories of hardships and want to leave those times behind, like they are something to be ashamed of. Instead, we should be lifting their stories up because they speak to our resiliency and strengths.
Remember, we have been here before. We are not going back. Make your mantra – “Don’t panic, Plan!”