America is going to have to save herself,” said LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of the national voting rights group Black Voters Matter.

She compared Black women’s presence in social justice movements as “core strategists and core organizers” to the North Star, the galaxy’s most consistent and dependable star because of its seemingly fixed position in the sky. Brown said people can rely on Black women to lead change, but the next four years will look different.

“That’s not a Herculean task that’s for us. We don’t want that title. … I have no goals to be a martyr for a nation that cares nothing about me,” she said.

Politically engaged Black women said they don’t plan to continue positioning themselves in the vertebrae of the “backbone” of America’s democracy. The growing movement prompting Black women to withdraw is a shift from history, where they are often present and at the forefront of political and social change.