Black Men’s Health 2026: Are You Strong Enough to Fight Back?

By Jeff Thomas | Publisher, Black Source Media | An Owner, WBOK 1230 AM & 107.1 FM

I want to ask you a direct question. And I need you to be honest with yourself when you answer it.

If the political situation in this country required you to march — the way our fathers and grandfathers marched — could you do it? Not a social media post. Not a retweet. An actual march. Miles of pavement. Hours on your feet. The sun on your back and nowhere to sit down.

Could you do it?

Because the men who changed this country did exactly that. The Black men and women who boycotted the Montgomery bus system in 1955 walked miles to work every day for 381 consecutive days. In the Alabama heat. In dress clothes. Because they had no other choice and because they understood that their bodies were instruments of resistance. The men who marched on Washington in 1963 — some of them walked from as far away as New York and Philadelphia. They did not Uber to the National Mall. They put their feet on the ground and they moved.

I am asking whether the Black men of 2026 are capable of doing the same. And I am asking it because the political moment we are living through may soon require an answer.

We Got Comfortable. And It Is Killing Us.

Let me be honest about something that we do not say out loud enough. The progress Black Americans have made — the financial stability, the home ownership, the cars in the driveway, the restaurants on every corner — has come with a health cost we have not fully reckoned with.

The men who marched in Selma were, by most measures, poor. They worked physically demanding jobs. They walked because they could not afford cars. They ate simple food because that was what was available. Their bodies — shaped by necessity — were instruments capable of sustained physical resistance.

We gained resources. We gained convenience. We gained the ability to drive to a store that is four blocks away. We gained fast food on every corner and processed everything in every grocery aisle. We gained the sedentary desk job and the streaming service that keeps us on the couch. And in gaining all of that, many of us lost the physical capacity that our fathers carried without thinking about it.

The numbers document what I am describing — and I want you to look at them as a before-and-after, not a comparison to somebody else.

In 1960, the overall obesity rate in America was approximately 12.8%. By the mid-1990s it had nearly doubled to 22.5%. Today, 39% of Black men are obese — and 63% of Black men over 20 are overweight or obese. That number did not exist in 1960. The processed food environment that drives it barely existed. The men who marched in Selma and boycotted Montgomery were not carrying that weight. Most of them could not afford to.

Type 2 diabetes was comparatively rare in mid-century Black America. The condition is driven heavily by diet, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle — none of which characterized Black life in the 1950s and 60s the way they characterize it today. Today, Black adults are up to 60% more likely to have diagnosed diabetes than a generation ago, and are 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with end-stage renal disease and 2.3 times more likely to face diabetes-related amputation. These are not inherited conditions from the civil rights era. They are conditions we have developed in the decades since.

The chronic disease crisis Black men carry today is largely a product of the decades after the civil rights movement. The processed food environment that drives obesity and diabetes did not exist at scale in the 1950s and 60s. The sedentary lifestyle enabled by cars, desk jobs, and convenience culture was not the reality of working-class Black life in Montgomery or Selma. We built this crisis in the decades of relative comfort that followed the movement — and we have the capacity to reverse it the same way we built it, one daily decision at a time.

In 2023, the average life expectancy for Black men was 70.3 years. In 1960 it was 60.7 years. So yes — we live longer. But many of us live those additional years in bodies compromised by preventable chronic disease. The question is not just how long we live. It is whether we are strong enough to act when action is required.

Are We Actually Worse Off Than in the 1950s and 60s?

That question deserves an honest answer. The data is complicated — but the honest answer is: in some ways, yes.

In 1960, Black men lived to an average of 60.7 years. In 2023, that number is 70.3 years — a gain of nearly ten years over six decades. On that measure, we are better off. The elimination of legal segregation improved access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity in ways that extended Black life.

However — and this is the part that does not get discussed enough — the chronic disease burden on Black men today is in many respects worse than it was in the civil rights era. Obesity rates among Black men have increased dramatically since the 1960s. Type 2 diabetes was significantly less prevalent in mid-century America across all racial groups because the processed food environment that now drives it did not yet exist at scale. Hypertension rates have remained stubbornly high despite decades of medical advancement.

The men of the civil rights movement were physically conditioned by a life that demanded physical activity. The men of 2026 are physically deconditioned by a life designed for maximum convenience. We live longer on average — but many of us live those additional years in bodies compromised by preventable chronic disease. The question is not just how long we live. It is whether we are strong enough to act when action is required.

The Medicine That Could Help Is Not Getting to Us

Here is where the health crisis intersects directly with the political one. The new generation of GLP-1 medications — Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro — represent one of the most significant advances in the treatment of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in medical history. These drugs are producing results that were previously unimaginable. For Black men carrying the weight of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, these medications could be genuinely life-changing.

Black men are not getting them.

Instead, the medical system continues routing Black patients toward older, less effective medications — metformin, sulfonylureas, insulin — while the new generation of drugs that could reverse the metabolic crisis in our community goes largely unprescribed in Black neighborhoods. This is not an accident of biology. It is a pattern of undertreatment that the medical establishment has applied to Black patients for generations. The best available option has historically not been the option offered to us.

The barriers are structural. Insurance status. Lack of access to routine specialist care. Out-of-pocket costs that can exceed $1,000 per month without coverage. A medical system where Black patients are less likely to be seen by physicians who prescribe these medications aggressively. A research and marketing infrastructure that did not center Black patients when these drugs were being introduced to the market.

Only 2.3% of Americans who qualify for GLP-1 medications actually receive them. Black men — who have among the highest need — are at the bottom of that already small percentage. A drug that could add years to a Black man’s life and restore the physical capacity he needs to show up in this political moment is sitting in a pharmacy he cannot access.

They Are Also Changing the Rules on Protest

Now I want to connect the health crisis to the political moment directly — because that connection is the whole point of this piece.

The political shift in this country is not only affecting our healthcare, our voting rights, and our economic opportunities. It is also targeting the most fundamental tool Black Americans have ever used to demand change: the right to protest in the streets.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, 41 new anti-protest bills were introduced across 22 states in the first months of the year alone — compared to a full-year total of 52 in all of 2024 and 26 in 2023, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law tracker. More than a dozen states have already passed restrictive protest laws. Louisiana has active protest legislation as of May 2026.

These laws do not use the language of racial suppression. They use the language of public order and riot prevention. They create new felony classifications for blocking traffic during a demonstration. They add rioting-related offenses to RICO statutes, meaning a protest that turns chaotic — even if you personally did nothing wrong — could expose you to federal organized crime charges. Some bills would revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations whose leaders are convicted of protest-related offenses. One bill, introduced in August 2025, would create an affirmative defense for drivers who run over protesters in the street.

Read that again. A legal defense for running over protesters.

The criminalization of protest has always fallen hardest on Black communities.The anti-protest laws of 2025 and 2026 carry race-neutral language but land in a racially specific reality. Black men who show up to demonstrate face a legal environment designed to expose them to maximum criminal liability for minimum acts of civil disobedience.

This matters for your health in a direct and practical way. A man with uncontrolled hypertension who stands in the summer heat for four hours risks a hypertensive crisis. A man with poorly managed diabetes who skips meals and overexerts himself risks a dangerous blood sugar event. A man with gout who marches on pavement for miles is physically incapacitated before he reaches the end of the route. And a man who gets arrested at a protest and has uncontrolled chronic disease faces those conditions in a jail cell with limited medical attention.

The political fight requires a healthy body. Right now, too many of us do not have one.

The Montgomery Model: What Physical Resistance Actually Required

Consider what the Montgomery Bus Boycott actually demanded of its participants physically. For 381 days — more than a year — Black men and women in Montgomery, Alabama walked to work, to church, to grocery stores, and back home again. Many of them walked five, eight, ten miles per day. They did this in Alabama heat, in work clothes, carrying the demands of their jobs and their families alongside the demands of the movement.

They did not have fitness apps or gym memberships. Nevertheless, they had bodies capable of sustained physical effort because their daily lives demanded it. Domestic workers walked to white neighborhoods to clean houses. Laborers worked on their feet all day. The physical conditioning of necessity prepared them for the physical demands of resistance.

In 1963, men and women from across the country converged on Washington for the March on Washington. Some walked from New York. Some rode buses. Some came by train. However, when they arrived, they stood for hours in the August heat and listened and marched and refused to leave until their voices had been heard.

That is what political resistance required of a body. It required endurance. Cardiovascular capacity. The ability to regulate temperature in extreme heat. The ability to stand, walk, and sustain physical effort over extended periods without medical emergency.

I am asking, plainly: can the Black men of 2026 do what the Black men of 1963 did? Can we put our bodies in the street the way our grandfathers did? Or have we eaten and driven and sat our way into a condition that makes us physically incapable of the resistance our moment may demand?

What Getting Healthy Actually Means in This Context

I am not talking about getting a six-pack. I am not talking about the gym selfie or the fitness influencer or the wellness retreat. I am talking about functional health — the kind of physical capacity that allows a man to show up when showing up matters.

Get your blood pressure under control. If you do not know your numbers, find out this week. Go to a pharmacy, a community health center, a doctor — whatever you have access to. Doctors call high blood pressure the silent killer because it produces no symptoms until it produces a crisis. Know your number. Manage it. Do not leave it unattended while you tell yourself you feel fine.

Get your blood sugar checked. Prediabetes affects millions of Black men who do not know they have it. Unmanaged diabetes is not just a long-term risk — it compromises your immune system, your circulation, your energy, and your capacity for physical effort right now, today.

Start moving. Not dramatically. Sustainably. Walk a mile. Then walk it faster. Then walk two. Build the cardiovascular baseline that protest — and life — requires. The men of Montgomery walked because they had no choice. We have a choice, and too many of us are choosing not to.

Talk to your doctor about every available option — including GLP-1 medications if you qualify. Do not assume these medications are not available to you because you have seen them advertised to a different demographic. Ask directly. Push for access. Know your rights as a patient. And if you encounter barriers, document them and contact a patient advocacy organization.

Eat differently. Not perfectly — differently. Reduce the processed food. Reduce the sodium. Reduce the sugar. These are not radical acts. They are basic interventions that directly affect blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, and cardiovascular function. The diet that is killing Black men in 2026 is a diet of convenience, and convenience has a price we are paying with years off our lives.

The Bottom Line

This country is changing in ways that may require Black men to take to the streets again. The voting rights are being stripped. The congressional districts are being redrawn. The protest laws are being tightened. The social safety net is being cut. The healthcare is being made less accessible. The machinery of rollback is running — and it is running fast.

Our grandfathers responded to a similar moment with their bodies. They walked. They stood. They marched. They absorbed heat and hostility and legal threat and they kept moving. That physical capacity was not an accident. It was the product of lives that demanded physical endurance.

We have to rebuild that capacity deliberately. Because it will not come from convenience. It has to be chosen.

A man with uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, and gout is not equipped to protest in the streets. He is certainly not equipped to march across states to Washington. The political fight requires a body that can show up — and show up for hours, in heat, under pressure, without medical emergency.

Get healthy. Not for your doctor. Not for your wife. Not for Instagram. Get healthy because the generation after you is watching to see whether you are capable of doing what your grandfather did when it mattered most.

The question is not whether the fight is coming. The question is whether you will be strong enough to stand in it.

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Jeff Thomas

Publisher — Black Source Media

Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist •  New Orleans

Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.

His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.

He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.

Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas

Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu

Latest posts by Jeff Thomas (see all)

• Black Men’s Health 2026: Are You Strong Enough to Fight Back? - June 3, 2026
• Black In America?You are Political Not Human - May 31, 2026
• Hurricane Preparedness 2026: What Every New Orleans Family Must Do Now - May 27, 2026

Jeff Thomas

Publisher — Black Source Media

Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist •  New Orleans

Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.

His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.

He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.

Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas

Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu