In the United States, Black women have addressed different intersecting forms of oppression such as racial and gender issues and they have an enormous role in the outcome of mental and physical health disparities such as elevated cortisol levels, chronic illness, emotional disorders, and social problems. Spirituality has always been […]
A Tragic Loss that Shattered a Myth Last summer, my family suffered the tragic loss of one of its youngest members. My niece died by suicide just over a month after her 16th birthday. Her untimely death has left many unanswered questions and unresolved grief. It has also been the […]
The Western world historically has viewed intense emotional expressions as “lunacy”, where moon energy and emotions were portrayed as dangerously irrational, being out of touch with reality, and even evil.
Living within a society that denies their beauty, power, and existence, Black women can find that recognizing their own joy is an act of resistance. However, Black joy and the African spirit are survival practices perfected under slavery. Throughout generations, Black joy has persisted through both covert and overt acts […]
For nearly two decades, I approached my federal career through the lens of a survivor. I was a dedicated employee who was very skilled at “fitting in” every room where I was the only one who looked like me. I made conscious decisions to carefully choose how I spoke, how […]
Being Spirit is the requisite alchemizing essence for the restoration of African ascendant people. In the modern world, the word spirit has multiple connotations. In a colloquial sense, it conjures notions of a dark, hauntingly unknown, ghostly entity. In another sense, it is understood as the psychic presence or soul […]
The holiday season is often portrayed as a time of laughter, love, and togetherness. Yet, for many African Americans, it can also be a season shadowed by unique stressors—including racial trauma, financial strain, and the emotional weight of systemic injustice (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2025). Scholars […]
Introduction This article will share some of the lessons learned from those who surf and teach surfing from a Black perspective and also identify what is beneficial for people to know about surfing. For many Black surfers in the USA, individual surfers from Hawaii, the East Coast and the […]
December is a season rich with reflection across the African diaspora. It is a time when memory feels closer, when ancestors feel present, and when ritual helps us mark not only the end of a year, but the beginning of a new one—and the continuation of our people. While celebrations […]
As I sit here at the close of 2025, wrapped in the energy of the winter solstice—that sacred moment when darkness yields to returning light—I find myself thinking about the challenges Black women have faced this year. Recent data shows our unemployment rate increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August […]
