Nadine Smith

Chip in to power Color Of Change's campaigns to defend our rights and our democracy! The Trump administration has launched a full-on assault on our democracy. Pitch in to fight back and support our campaigns to protect our schools, our families, and our future!

I made a video about why this moment demands focus and why Color of Change plays a role no one else can fill. I’m eager to hear your thoughts and I hope you’ll join the work.

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Color Of Change - Nationally Renowned Civil Rights Leader Joins Color Of Change as New President and CEO Longtime Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith to Join on Jan. 12, 2026 Washington, D.C. — Today, Color Of Change announced that nationally renowned civil rights leader Nadine Smith will be...

Soon I’ll be taking the helm at Color of Change, the nation’s largest racial justice organization with major online impact. I am deeply proud of the work at Equality Florida and confident in the team carrying it forward.
Please share the news and my excitement.

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A Certain Kind of Hero Tina Certain didn’t flinch, and Florida’s phony “free speech” enforcers couldn’t handle it.

Every now and then we have to celebrate the everyday heroes who refuse to blink or backdown to fascist intimidation.
open.substack.com/pub/1nadines...

Walmart is selling a T-shirt that has paper beats rock and it has a white hand in what most people see as a Nazi salute over a Black power fist.

Walmart, who on your staff will be pretending they didn’t understand what was wrong with this image?

Deep in Trump country, coal miners with black lung say government is suffocating the 'working man' Lisa Emery, a respiratory therapist, is deeply concerned about West Virginia coal miners suffering from black lung disease.

Sick coal miners deep in Trump country fight back, saying they are being suffocated by government policies aimed at helping industry while stripping away worker health and safety regulations written in blood over decades.

Infographic titled “Days House Republicans Have Worked in the Last 3 Months.” It shows a three-month calendar for August, September, and October. A key indicates red squares as “worked” and gray squares as “did not work.” • August: all days gray, meaning no work days. • September: red squares on September 2–4, 8–11, and 15–19, showing only 11 workdays. • October: all days gray, meaning no work days. The image highlights that House Republicans worked only a small number of days in September and none in August or October.

Imagine just not showing up to work but expecting to get paid and keep the job.

Let Them Eat Hate The Gilded Age corruption returns, and so does the rage that ended it

The Gilded Age collapsed under its own corruption. A backlash is building, but ending this administration is not enough. We need a vision for the future, not a return to some imagined past, but a future that builds prosperity, safety, and hope for all of us, not just the people in the ballroom.

News article: Customer shot in Publix parking lot awarded $2.5M after jury finds company partially responsible.

Publix: Where Shopping Is a Danger
Publix now allows open carry in all Florida stores—even as it bans guns at its own headquarters and was just ordered to pay $2.5 million to a customer shot on its property. Guns and groceries don’t mix.

📞 HQ: (863) 688-1188
📞 Customer Service: 1-800-242-1227

scenes around chicago showing tear gas clouds. ice agent throwing canister, border patrol boss throwing tear gas, tear gas overcoming reporters at broadview facility, tear gas in lake view neighborhood, agent rolling canister down street

Chicagoans are rightly furious about what ICE is doing here as it tries to sow chaos in this otherwise peaceful city. Now we also have a flurry of unwarranted tear gassing incidents across the city that sure look like a violation of a federal court order.
My latest: open.substack.com/pub/jennifer...

The people yearn for (democratic) socialism (this one will make you cry)

Because in the end, the world collapses into whatever we tolerate or rises to what we aspire to be.
Happy Halloween!

We have to write a new story together, one that defines the world we want to live in, one where we protect each other from the greed and predation of those who see the world only through the lens of what they can take.

What we are left with is the need to rebuild a social contract from the ground up. To remember that our survival depends on decency toward one another and solidarity against those who dismantle democracy and strip away our shared humanity.

Trump lives by one rule: Who dares to stop me? He counts on our norms, our normalcy bias, our restraint to shield him. And it won’t be the bootlickers in Congress or the corrupt and compromised Supreme Court majority that will stop him. They have traded away integrity for power.

But we are living through a moment when that trust is being deliberately eroded. There are people who see basic decency as a weakness to exploit. People who lean on the expectation that others will follow the rules so they can break them with impunity.

So much of life runs on that invisible contract. We trust that other drivers will stay on their side of the road. We trust that strangers will stop at red lights.

Generations of parents threw out fruit and homemade Halloween treats of all kinds because somewhere, someone might have violated that basic bond by shoving a sewing needle into a Red Delicious.

That is why the old Halloween story of the razor in the apple still resonates. It never actually happened, but the rumor alone was enough to destroy trust.

But it wasn’t the roach that stuck with me most vividly from that strange encounter It was the reminder that so much of how we live together in this world depends on shared agreements. Not laws, but understandings. We rely on mutual expectations. I won’t harm you, and you won’t harm me.

Side note: while the greens were delicious, I watched the husband scoop up a forkful that included half a cockroach and shovel it straight into his mouth. Queasy and disoriented by this strange Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, I found as polite an excuse as I could muster and left.

It was unsettling. I sat there, a guest at a stranger’s table, wondering why she thought cruelty and domination were virtues worth celebrating.

Instead, she launched into a rant about the “sniveling weaklings” who had reported him, and how she was proud to have raised a boy who knew how to win.

I waited for her to shift gears, to share the moment when she explained to him why that behavior was wrong, or how he could make it right. I assumed it was a long wind-up to a pitch to join her faith.

At one point, the mother began telling a story about something that had happened at her tween-aged son’s school. As the details unfolded, it became clear that her son had been the bully in the story.

I didn’t know until I sat down that they were a Scientology family. I discovered it midway through the meal, as I began to feel the gentle but persistent probing that proselytizers are so good at. Living in Clearwater, I was used to it, so I tried to navigate the conversation without being rude.

I had briefly met the husband through mutual friends. He was into gardening, and I was eager to learn his organic gardening techniques. He invited me over to see his elaborate backyard setup, and since it was around dinner time, he asked me to stay and share a meal made from what he had grown.

Politics and the Cockroach in the Kale A Halloween Meditation on the ties that bind us

Years ago, I sat down to dinner with people I barely knew, and before the main course began, I was planning my escape.

1nadinesmith.substack.com/p/politics-a...

NIGHTS OF BLUE SKIES

DAY 28 OCTOBER 2025

THESE HORRENDOUS TIMES

🚨 7 DAYS AWAY 🚨

🚨CALIFORNIA VOTE
YES ON #PROP50 🚨

A Special Shout Out &
Thank You to @votevets.org Take a moment to listen to these 2 great Veterans as they KNOW ..
IMPORTANCE OFPROP 50

A grateful nation thanks you!

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

There is a graphic with the following words and the black print signed by Steven Tramontana: I’m on board with this idea, sitting out black Friday and Cyber Monday, we taken to the streets now we need to hit them financially