On the morning of Nov. 6, Tara Bell woke up at 4:15 with a panic in her chest. After a stressful election night, she turned on the TV to find what she worried had been confirmed – Donald Trump was named President-Elect for the second time.
According to AP News, Trump has proposed many policies that could affect marginalized communities, including women, people of color, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community. Prior to his victory, he “called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions” and to “scrap diversity programs at all levels of education,” the nonpartisan organization states.
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Trump also proposed reversing the Biden administration’s Title IX protections for transgender students, and said that if elected, the nation would have “the largest mass deportation program in history.” AP News reports that his stance on reproductive rights remains unclear. He said he would veto a federal abortion ban but has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that established abortion as a constitutional right in 1973. Trump appointed three justices throughout his first term who contributed to the majority decision to overturn Roe.
“Our country betrayed us, and at that point, I just kind of felt like I was moving through Jell-o, that feeling when you’ve taken too much cold medicine,” she said.
Bell is the director of social action and education for Pride in Action, Southern IL, an organization that promotes social welfare for the LGBTQ+ community in southern Illinois. Like many other members, she raised concerns about what a second Trump term means for the future of the nation.
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“First, I do think it’s going to hit our resources and our access to medical and health care; that’s where they already started chipping away,” she said. “I think that after that, we’re going to see the threats increase to marriage equality…families being ripped apart…losing education, losing rights for visibility, all that on that scale. One thing that I’m scared of, that I’m seeing happen already…is the emboldened nature of the Trump supporters and how they’re already starting to lash out.”
Bell referred to two harmful internet campaigns that have occurred in the days since Trump was elected. According to CNN, Black people nationwide have been receiving text messages from unknown numbers, addressing them by name and claiming that they “have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” The phrase “your body, my choice” has been circulating X and Tiktok, according to The Spokesman Review.
“It’s devastating,” Bell said. “I don’t have any answers yet, and that’s why we’re having these meetings.”
On Friday, Nov. 8, Pride in Action hosted Power in Unity! Public Support and Strategy Planning in Response to the Trump Election. The event included a rally at the Carbondale City Hall, a march down The Strip and a community forum.
Bell said that the morning after the election, the word “again” kept racing through her mind. In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was the first woman to win the national popular vote for president, was defeated by Trump. Eight years later on Tuesday, Kamala Harris, the first woman to serve as vice president and the second woman nominated by the Democratic party for president, was defeated by Trump.
Bell knew she couldn’t keep dwelling on the news – she had to do something.
“My mind starts racing, and the first thing I did, I started reaching out,” she said.
Bell contacted Nancy Maxwell, member of the Carbondale City Council and executive director of Carbondale United, an anti-gun violence and anti-racism organization. She said that Maxwell talked about Carbondale United partnering with other groups and hosting a healing circle for the community.
“It was crucial to me that even though Pride in Action is a predominantly LGBTQ+ organization, we had to work with other groups,” she said. “We had to work with other marginalized communities, that this affects all of us, not just any one group, and we had to reach out to these other organizations and come together to do something for all marginalized communities.”
She began organizing the public gathering and reaching out to the community.
“Yesterday (Thursday), that’s when we, like, started really putting things into cement…” she said. “I talked with Gaia House, they’re always amazing. They allowed us to use the space. Started contacting speakers and people who we wanted to get on the lineup. Finally, this morning (Friday), I woke up with less fog, so I did all that in two days of fog with a lot of help from my board members. Today, I started digging in and getting the agenda put together and how we wanted to approach a community meeting.”
Around 125 people gathered with signs at the City Hall Friday evening. Organizers distributed pins and pride flags. Bell led participants in chants and introduced speakers from various impacted communities.
Councilmember Maxwell addressed the crowd, stressing the importance of Carbondale remaining a safe space for all. She told the Daily Egyptian she did so because “people need to speak.”
“We cannot be quiet in this time,” she said. “Quiet is a reflection of acceptance, and we’re not accepting this. We cannot. If we made it through slavery, we can make it through anything. We will make it through this, and we will make it through with a fight.”
Another member of the City Council was present: Clare Killman, the first transgender person in the state to serve as a councilperson. Killman asked the crowd to come closer as she highlighted Illinois’ history of upholding the “right to personhood,” referencing its role in the Civil War.
“Being an Illinoisan has always meant safeguarding the interest of individual self-determination,” she said. “I came to Illinois more than a decade ago to do just that, because I recognized that our values uphold and affirm the individual freedom to become yourself, to chart your course and to determine your own destiny.”
Killman expressed deep concern for the future of Illinois being threatened by Trump’s administration.
“I cannot sit idly by while Illinois, a state I love most dearly, and our people, will be subjected to becoming targets of a reorganized federal bureaucracy of sycophants and informants, turning Illinoisan against Illinoisan,” she said. “Our people will be persecuted as political dissidents in retributive, discriminatory campaigns to silence critical thought; stripped of federal recognition and funding for the sake of our values and our shared way of life; and denied access to medical care so vital to Illinoisans and the residents of our surrounding regions.”
She said if the state remains part of the United States, it would “at best, make us passively complicit” and “at worst…be morally corrosive, damning, by forcing our active compliance.”
“In the spirit of what it means to be an Illinoisan, it is with the utmost sincerity, thought and care that I advocate Illinois secede from the United States of America,” she said. “To wait for the worst to come for us is to rob ourselves of a life worth living. To act preemptively is the only morally acceptable option to save our state and its soul.”
When the speakers concluded, participants marched from City Hall to St. Rt. 13 and then back down the strip, finishing at the Gaia House Interfaith Center, which is located at 913 S. Illinois Ave. There, a discussion was held regarding strategies to keep marginalized populations safe and encourage solidarity within the community.
“I feel like tonight was very productive,” Bell said. “We only got through half of our agenda, and I kind of anticipated that. I think that we did step one, which was that kind of check-in with everybody, get their ideas, see what other groups are doing, get all that written down…I think that as far as a community effort and a community front that the planning went very, very well. It seems like everyone else is happy with how we approached it and I think that the march was very empowering.”
Korey Klausing, also known as drag queen Korra DeVill, gave a speech at the City Hall and participated in the march and forum. They spoke with the Daily Egyptian about the importance of starting at the local level, encouraging support for minority groups and small businesses in southern Illinois.
“We really need to come together as one and unify, and we really need to focus on each other,” Klausing said. “Because the biggest thing that this election is trying to do is divide us, and divided we fall, united we stand, and we just need to keep that in our minds whenever dealing with hard people to talk to.”
Klausing said they felt it was their duty as Southern Illinois Pride Queen 2024 to “show up and show out for every single event that involves and affects my community.”
“I really feel driven to activism after the recent election and the results we’ve gotten from it,” they said. “So I’m just tired of sitting back and accepting that, ‘Oh, it might get better.’ No, it needs to, and we are going to be the changing force of that, but we have to show up.”
They noted that the effects of Covid-19 are still lingering, which presents a challenge.
“I feel like a lot of people are still stuck indoors, like they really are just comfortable staying to their own in their safe spaces,” they said. “And while that is important and great and we should all have our safe spaces, we need to start getting in the streets. Like, we need to go out supporting the events, supporting the people, supporting the community, supporting the individuals.”
Klausing suggested becoming knowledgeable about efforts from community organizations and encouraged people to venture outside of their safe zones.
“We need to show up and show out, because at the end of the day, these people aren’t gonna know we exist if we don’t make it known,” Klausing said. “Online, you can spout anything you want to and you’ll get a reach, but it’s not (to) the direct people around you that need to hear it. It’s such a wider thing, and I think in times like this, we all need to focus on our communities and where we are at, because if we want our communities to change for the better, we have to start in the community, and then that will branch outwardly into bigger things.”
Bell told the Daily Egyptian that many community members expressed fear about coming out that night.
“I totally understand, and that just kind of reinforced the idea that it’s even more necessary for those who can be out to do it, to get out there for everybody else,” she said.
The event concluded around 8:30 p.m. Many stuck around, mingling with one another. Bell said she was pleased with the turnout.
“(We) hit the ground running and we did our thing. And I think that the community needed it, and I think it was really effective,” she said.
Klausing mentioned the impact of love, calling it the “biggest message.”
“That is our biggest fighting point, and that’s going to be the thing that wins this at the end, is our unwavering strength to love almost anybody, because we know how it feels to not be loved because of who we are, what we were born as and how we identify,” they said.
To uplift one another during this time, Maxwell said the community has to stick together.
“We have to work together,” she said. “We’ve separated – divided you fall, together you stand – we got to stand…The things that we can do is look out for each other, work together, and like I said, keep (Carbondale) a safe sanctuary.”
News editor Carly Gist can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook and on X @dailyegyptian.
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