Trump’s comments about the “N-word” were meant to sound clever but they expose a deeper truth. America’s deadliest weapon has never just been nuclear. It’s been the systems that target, destroy, and devalue Black life. Let’s unpack two moments in history when they literally bombed us.
16th Street Church Bombing: Everything changed instantly for five little girls chatting about the new school year in the basement of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded under the church steps, killing four of them: 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley. Addie Mae’s sister, Sarah, survived but lost her right eye. The blast was a brutal reminder of how far hate will go to silence innocence.
Philly MOVE Bombing: Under the leadership of Philadelphia’s first Black mayor, W. Wilson Goode, Sr., on May 13, 1985, police dropped a bomb on MOVE, a Black liberation organization. The barbaric bombing killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed dozens of homes nearby.
From the bombing of our churches and homes to the erasure of our stories, the assault has never stopped. Today, we see it in the defunding of Black museums, the banning of Black history books, and the workforce pushout of more than 300,000 Black women since February 2025.
Like those before us, we must persevere even when the road is long and tiring. We’re not just fighting, strategizing, and organizing right now; we’re building a better world for Black future generations, just as our ancestors did for us. We all we got.