Don’t Leave the Basement: A Call to Action in the Wake of Trump’s Reelection

Rev. Rashad Raymond Moore

Six years before the end of the Civil War, William Jefferson White, a social engineer in Augusta, Georgia, organized a Sunday School in the basement of the Springfield Baptist Church. It may have seemed like an ordinary gathering in an unassuming place to outsiders. In reality, it was a cover, underground school—a revolutionary act of resistance at a time when teaching Black people was illegal in states throughout the South. This secret school ultimately evolved into Morehouse College, the nation’s only historically Black liberal arts college for men.

During my time at Morehouse, I had the opportunity to visit the basement, where a community conspired to break the psychological shackles of slavery. What they built in that humble space was more than a school; it was a site of liberation, where they sowed seeds of freedom and possibility at an unpromising time.

Church basements have long been the birthplace and shelter for many Black institutions and movements that have shaped our history. From HBCUs like Morehouse and Spelman Colleges to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program, the basement has served as a space for teaching, strategizing, and celebrating. It is where our people gathered to dream, to fight, and to create a path forward.

This history comes to mind after Donald J. Trump’s reelection. His return to the White House, coupled with the policies and rhetoric that threaten our communities, is a stark reminder that the pendulum of progress often swings backward before it moves forward again. Yet, as I reflect on what our ancestors built in spaces like that basement, I am reminded that the resilience they nurtured is a blueprint for us today.

We need to return to the basement—physically and symbolically. While the sanctuary and public stages have their place, the basement grounds us in the practical work of community organizing. The basement is not necessarily glamorous, but it is where problems become new possibilities.

Political pundits and analysts will continue to point fingers in every direction and discern what went wrong in this election, but this moment calls us to look inward and ask: Who are we to each other? So, what will your basement work be?

Start Where You Are.
Those Sunday School teachers in 1859 could not imagine that their ordinary work would lay the college’s foundation. Start small, but think big. The work may initially seem ordinary, but as history shows, extraordinary change begins in the most unassuming places. Maybe it’s mentoring a young person, launching a small business, organizing a voter registration drive, or volunteering with a local group.

Strengthen Relationships.
Build power as a community. Identify people in your family, neighborhood, or network with whom you can deepen relationships. Have intentional, one-on-one conversations that foster honesty, trust, and collaboration.

Support Black Institutions.
Our civic organizations, like the NAACP, need us to show up. Join, return, speak up, and take an active role. Bring your time, talent, treasure, and testimony to fortify the organizations and institutions that will sustain us.

Our ancestors didn’t wait for permission to build. They worked with what they had. They turned basements into classrooms, kitchens into community centers, and setbacks into springboards. They taught us how to turn problems into possibilities. Today, we must do the same.

Rev. Rashad Raymond Moore, PhD is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Crown Heights and studies the History and Philosophy of Black Education