Atima Omara — The Instigators
Democratic strategist Atima Omara argues that young Black women are the essential constituency for American democracy, charting their long political history.
Why we picked this
Omara's thesis is specific and backed by data: without Black women voters, American democracy as we understand it doesn't exist. This is the political history that makes that argument.
The Instigators makes a precise claim: that young Black women are not just an important constituency but the constituency without which American democracy cannot be sustained. Atima Omara, a veteran Democratic strategist and campaign manager, grounds that claim in a historical account of Black women’s political participation across two centuries.
The book traces how Black women have organized, fought for voting rights, built coalitions, and turned out at rates that have repeatedly determined the outcome of elections that mattered—often without receiving the credit or political capital that should follow. It is both a history and an argument about what Democrats consistently get wrong about their own coalition.
Omara presents at Politics and Prose at The Wharf. Free and open to the public.