Fear made André Canty dance in the boxing ring. Fear gave him strength. Fear made him take the fight to his opponent.

“Fear and anger can work to your advantage,” Canty said during a multimedia and discussion program—“We Gon’ Be Alright: Surviving 2016 and Entering the Third Reconstruction”—last Thursday at the University of Tennessee’s Black Cultural Center. “How can we get through this in love and justice and not be so scared you can’t do anything?”

About three-dozen students and citizens—including African-Americans, Muslims, and other minorities—came to the meeting seeking succor and solidarity. During his campaign, Donald Trump pledged to deport millions; demonized Muslims; promised extensive environmental-protection rollbacks; ran on an anti-abortion platform; and made grossly misogynistic statements about his sexual domination over women. The president-elect’s actions since the election don’t bode well for progressives, either: He appointed an attorney general who has made racist statements and named a far-right figure with ties to the white supremacist movement as his chief strategist.

But those floored and frightened by the Nov. 8 election of the flame-throwing Republican should forget about flight, and instead focus on the fight, said Canty, a former amateur boxer. At 31, the black activist is president of 100 Black Men of Knoxville and development director at Highlander Research and Education Center.

The message resonated with audience members who pledged increased collaboration to protect human rights—and they took comfort in seeing they weren’t alone. Based on a canvass of Knoxville-area advocacy groups, unity is a recurring theme as their constituencies face an uncertain future. In fact, some groups are more galvanized than ever to fight what they see as good fights for reproductive rights, religious freedom, immigrants, and environmental conservation and preservation.

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The message to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition bleeds fear and uncertainty: “I want to know how to prepare in case the deportations start. I have three little girls, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go ahead and get a notarized letter that would allow someone who is legally in the country to bring my citizen children to me after I get deported to Mexico. What I can do? I am desperate.”

The message—one of many such pleas for help received since the election—is front and center on the TIRRC website, and includes a statement from the coalition: “We received this message on Wednesday, the day after Donald Trump was elected president. It’s one of hundreds of questions we’ve received as immigrants and refugees process what the election means for the future and what it says about our country. Our hearts are broken for the thousands of Tennesseans who are living with such a deep sense of fear and uncertainty right now.”

Refugees and undocumented immigrants are terrified, says Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, TIRRC policy manager. While the deportation issues loom, of more immediate concern is Trump’s promised repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive order from President Barack Obama that offered special work and education status for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Revocation of DACA would affect some 14,000 young immigrants in the state, Sherman-Nikolaus says. They would lose driver’s licenses and the ability to work, and that would cause a cascade of negative economic effects.

“Their whole livelihood is at stake,” she says, and the overwhelming concern and angst in the immigrant community “is sort of unprecedented.” People are sending money to Mexico, and signing powers of attorney to others should they be deported and removed from their children. “We’ve never gone into this level of help,” she says.

A Trump presidency is two months away. “This is the time to organize … to tell the broader community we are here to stay and we are not leaving without a fight,” Sherman-Nickolaus says.

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University of Tennessee Muslim chaplain Nadeem Siddiqi says that phone calls from the press making queries about religious-freedom concerns are a sure sign things are amiss. But it shouldn’t be that surprising. Trump won the presidency despite nationalist and racist ideologies, and America needs to own the fact, Siddiqi says.

“Now that the veil has been lifted we can see it for what it is across the country,” Siddiqi says. “The Republican National Committee and conservatives didn’t just elect a conservative. They went beyond that.”

He has only heard anecdotal evidence of harassment of Muslims in Knoxville, he says, though some Muslim students have voiced concerns about walking across the UT campus alone at night. And he does voice what might be described as a sort of “guarded optimism” when it comes to Trump’s plans for mass deportation or immigration bans based on religion. 

“Trump doesn’t seem to understand complexity,” like how difficult it would be to deport millions and ban the entry of Muslims to the country or force followers of Islam to register themselves, he says.

At the same time, Siddiqi urges Americans of all stripes to try and understand the issues facing rural America and other slices of the electorate they may not be familiar with.

His advice to Muslims: “Work locally on a community level and develop good relationships. Stand up for those who are oppressed.”

Mayar Desouki, a Muslim student from Nashville studying audiology and speech pathology at UT, says she was in “anxiety-attack panic mode” following Trump’s election.

While Siddiqi and several people at the Black Cultural Center forum cautioned against shutting out others and reinforcing the echo-chamber of social media, Desouki, among those who now feel uneasy walking across campus as a visible Muslim, says she feels better knowing she is in collaboration and solidarity with others.

“Since the election I hadn’t met with other minority groups,” she says. “There’s a sense of hope you can get being around others like you.”

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Planned Parenthood celebrated its centennial this year.

“We’ve been through a lot, for 100 years,” says Tory Mills, external affairs director for Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood provides numerous reproductive-health services such as STD testing, health checks and contraception, as well as abortions, but has long been a lightning rod for abortion foes. Restrictive laws on the practice are already in place in Tennessee, including a 48-hour waiting period following initial abortion counseling and examination.

“What we’ve seen that do is really create burdens” on women seeking abortions, she says.

Trump now opposes abortion and will make at least one pick for the Supreme Court. But Mills says advocates for reproductive rights are galvanized, and most Americans support access to safe, legal abortions and health care.

“Post-election, what has been dramatic is our supporters reaching out and recommitting themselves to this kind of work protecting access to reproductive health care,” Mills says.

A surge in social media support and volunteer applications began soon after Nov. 8.

“This has made people really aware they need to stand up for groups they support,” she says.

At the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, a provider of surgical abortions on West Clinch Avenue, anti-abortion protesters became increasingly strident in the waning weeks of the election.

They have blocked the clinic driveway and have trespassed, says Knoxville Abortion Doula Collective founder Amelia Caron in a phone interview. The collective provides emotional support to women in the process of obtaining an abortion and provides patient escorts into the clinic when needed.

“We have seen an increase in both turnout numbers and tactics of harassment and law-breaking,” she says.

In a follow-up statement she says: “Our biggest concern is that people with unplanned pregnancies are unaware of the resources available to help them, which is where our volunteers come in to fill that gap. Currently people contact us for help through social media and email, but we will be launching a website and hotline in 2017.”

Corinne Rovetti, co-director of the KCRH, says Trump supported abortion rights prior to his campaign, so his motives are unclear.

“But given who he has surrounded himself with [including staunch anti-choice Vice President-elect Mike Pence and anti-abortion firebrand Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general] and the Republican party’s obsession with legislating women’s health issues, the future threats to women’s autonomy to make decisions for themselves is very real,” Rovetti says in a statement. “KCRH will continue providing safe abortions with dignity and being a refuge from shame for the women of our communities as we have done for the last 41 years. We will stand against all and any intimidation and fear and champion at the state and federal level to maintain women’s constitutional rights to freedom and privacy of decision making; keeping the government out of our health and medical visits.”

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Trump has called climate change a hoax and is expected to wind down any international American leadership on the matter and withdraw the U.S. from global agreements to curb carbon dioxide emissions. He has also pledged to ramp up domestic extraction of fossil fuels.

Environmentalists view the pending Trump presidency with alarm.

“Many of us are surprised and unsure of the future of our efforts to improve the environment following the results of the Presidential election,” Tennessee Clean Water Network Executive Director Renee Hoyos wrote on the group’s Facebook page. “As we look at the next Administration’s plans for the first 100 days, we see a roll back of protective environmental legislation, withdrawal from climate negotiations, and opening up coal and oil fields to reinvigorate this polluting industry.”

“We have been here before. This is George Bush and Dick Cheney all over again, but with intolerance and hostility as motivators. But we know the ground game to continue our progress and it involves YOU!!!” Hoyos wrote.

Save Our Cumberland Mountains was formed in response to coal-industry abuses in East Tennessee. The 40-year-old group is now called Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment and has more of a social and environmental justice focus these days, but Executive Director Ann League was asked to reference the group’s coal-black roots.

All those mining jobs and the resurrection of the coal industry promised by Trump? It likely won’t happen on a big level in East Tennessee, League says. Seams have been largely tapped and the remaining coal is too expensive to extract; natural gas offers a cheaper energy alternative for utility plants.

“All the low-hanging fruit is gone, at least in East Tennessee,” League says. “The market drives coal-mining, and the market isn’t there for Appalachian coal.”

Not that the extractive practices won’t continue at all; League is encouraging people to scrutinize the proposed 1,500-acre Cooper Ridge Mine on the Campbell and Claiborne county line. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is holding a public hearing on the mine on Dec. 20 in Knoxville.

SOCM is also concerned about the rollback of water- and air-quality regulations by the Trump administration and Republican congress.

Its community-based foundation bridges the very divides that were so apparent on Nov. 8.

“We have never been partisan; we have members from all walks of life and political parties because they are protecting their communities,” she says.

And, like others contacted for this article, League says members are fired up; some were dejected at the election results, but others came to the first board meeting after Nov. 8 “with an attitude they are not going to let it stop them doing their work.”

Featured Photo: André Canty, fifth from left, leads students and community members in a prayer and empowerment chant last week at the Black Cultural Center at the University of Tennessee.