Anneshia Hardy | The Hardy Exchange
This month, I had the honor of joining Alexis Buchanan Thomas on Black Girls Do Politics alongside guest co-host Summer Nettles for a conversation rooted in one urgent reality:
Black history is being erased in real time. And not by accident.
We recorded this episode on the first day of Black History Month, which felt… on the nose. Because while folks love to quote Dr. King once a year, the systems behind the scenes are working overtime to make sure our full stories never make it into the record.
From a narrative strategy perspective, erasure is intentional narrative design. It’s the decision about:
- which stories are “legitimate”
- which histories are considered “neutral”
- and which truths get framed as “dangerous”
And I said this on the show because I need it to be plain:
Black history has always been treated like a threat, because it exposes the contradictions at the heart of American democracy.
This is why the fight is never just about curriculum. Curriculum is narrative. And narrative is how a society decides who belongs, whose pain counts, and who gets protected.
The Real Strategy: Control Memory → Control Meaning → Control Behavior
One of the core points I returned to throughout the episode is this:
Memory shapes meaning. Meaning shapes what people believe they deserve. (ACMM Framework)
So when you disrupt memory, when you shrink, censor, sanitize, or remove history, you’re not just changing what people know. You’re changing what people believe is possible.
That’s why the tactics keep evolving:
- Not “burn the book” — but label it divisive
- Not “ban Black teachers” — but punish anyone “teaching the truth”
- Not “say white supremacy” — but hide behind “standards,” “neutrality,” and “parental rights”
Same playbook. Updated packaging.
Why This Always Spikes During Election Cycles
Alexis asked a key question: Why does Black history keep becoming a target during election cycles?
Because Black history creates political clarity. It shows patterns. It names the lineage.
It helps people connect the dots between:
- yesterday’s disenfranchisement and today’s voter suppression
- yesterday’s propaganda and today’s “anti-woke” moral panic
- yesterday’s Southern Strategy and today’s policy pipelines
And when people can connect those dots, they stop voting based on fear and disinformation and start voting based on reality.
Erasure during election cycles is about dulling political memory so folks don’t recognize the pattern and don’t organize accordingly.
At one point in the discussion, I got strait to the point.
If history is optional, democracy is conditional.
- Anneshia Hardy
Because once your story is framed as controversial, your vote becomes suspect.
Once your experience is treated like an “opinion,” your rights become negotiable.
Once your community’s memory is dismissed, the public record gets rebuilt without you.
Democracy doesn’t expand because power gets kind. It expands because marginalized communities force their truths into the record, through organizing, culture, storytelling, and pressure.
There is This is where the episode turns from diagnosis to action. We talked about protecting Black history by treating it like infrastructure, not decoration.
Not just museums and textbooks, though those matter. But also:
- podcasts
- local journalism
- community archives
- oral histories
- zines
- digital storytelling
- intergenerational memory work
And I loved what we named together in this episode:
You don’t need permission to be a steward of memory. You already are.
Start where you are:
- Interview your elders (voice memo counts)
- Save documents and photos (Google Drive counts)
- Build informal archives (notes app counts)
- Question what’s missing—not just what’s present
- Show up where curriculum decisions are made (because erasure is often quiet)
Archives don’t have to be perfect to be powerful. They just have to exist.
If you take nothing else from this conversation, take this:
Erasure is not the past. It’s a present-tense strategy. Because when people can remember clearly, they can fight clearly.
If this episode hit you, share it with one person who needs language for what they’re watching.
And if you want more conversations like this, where we connect the dots between power and policy stay connected with Black Girls Do Politics.
About the Author
Anneshia Hardy is a narrative strategist, scholar-activist, and social impact entrepreneur committed to leveraging storytelling and messaging for transformative social change. As Executive Director of grassroots communications and media advocacy organizations, Alabama Values and Alabama Values Progress, she leads efforts to strengthen the pro-democracy movement in Alabama and across the South through strategic messaging and digital strategies.
Co-founder of Blackyard LLC, Anneshia equips changemakers to amplify their impact in marginalized communities. With over a decade of experience, she has conducted narrative and messaging trainings for organizations like the NAACP and the Obama Foundation. Anneshia has also shaped strategies for landmark voting rights cases, including Allen v. Milligan and Louisiana v. Callais Rooted in the belief that culturally relevant narratives can drive equity and inspire action, she bridges academic insight and real-world advocacy to create lasting change.