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. 2023 Jan 31;2(3):317–329. doi: 10.1177/27526461231154012

Restoring resilience through joy: The pursuit of happiness in the midst of unprecedented times

Leslie Ekpe 1,✉, Ashley Sherman 2, Ezinne D Ofoegbu 3
PMCID: PMC9899679

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presented numerous threats to the Black community. These unprecedented times called for many individuals to extend beyond what once was the “norm” to make ends meet. It is not enough that Black people were dying at a disproportionate rate (Krieger, 2020); the virus further entrenched racism and destitution, with Black people four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people due to inequalities in healthcare, education, and policy decision-making. Despite a pandemic that ravaged Black communities with brutal, life-threatening circumstances and months of protesting institutional injustices and extrajudicial police brutality, Black people still found joy in moments of unrest.

Keywords: black, Coronavirus (COVID-19), joy, racism, systemic injustices

“Black joy is about manifesting the joy that you need, deserve, or desire.”

(Kleaver Cruz, 2022)

Introduction

“I’m on the pursuit of happiness and I know

Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold, hey

I’ll be fine once I get it, yeah, I’ll be good.”

- Kid Cudi

Foundational to understanding Black joy is a comprehension of the system of racism and oppression to which this joy serves as resistance. Dr. Bettina Love (2019) defined Black joy as “a celebration of taking back your identity as a person of color and signaling to the world that your darkness is what makes you strong and beautiful” (p. 120) and “understanding and recognizing that as a dark person you come with grit and zest because you come from survivors who pushed their bodies and minds to the limits for you to one day thrive” (p. 120). Before speaking about joy, we must analyze the factors shaping our experiences. We present racial battle fatigue (RBF) as a “theoretical framework for examining social psychological stress responses (e.g., frustration; anger; exhaustion; physical avoidance; psychological or emotional withdrawal; escapism; acceptance of racist attributions; resistance; verbally, nonverbally, or physically fighting back, and coping strategies) associated with being a Black person during times of struggle” (Smith, 2004). Thus, requiring Black people to become resilient in hopes of overcoming a current state of hindrance. However, there is a flaw in the term resilience in that it requires Black bodies to return to and be sustained in a life that continues to harm their very beings. For that reason, Black joy is a radical act of choosing oneself in an anti-Black world (Love, 2019; Laurencin & McClinton, 2020).

A means for survival, Black joy necessitates the need for healing. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presented numerous threats to the Black community. This paper explores the importance of Black joy for the Black community during turbulent times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper focused on the many threats that the year 2020 brought upon the Black community and how for many of us, finding joy in these circumstances, tracing as far back to American slavery, has been a practice, or a remedy, for that of the Black community as a means for inspiration in knowing, “this too shall pass.” During times of trauma, fatigue, and turbulence, the Black community established room to recover, laugh, and interact as a form of resilience after the pandemic brought change and obstacles to our normality. For many in the Black community, joy is the intentional need to keep fighting. It is an instinct for life, a natural determination to be satisfied. The guiding research question for this paper is,

  • 1. What is the role of joy in turbulent times for Black people?

Overview

In the past two years, the world has witnessed the senseless murders of Black lives, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic’s crippling effects on the lived experiences of Black people. The publicized murders of unarmed Black people in 2020 (e.g., Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd) resulted in civil unrest and called for change nationwide. Amid this civil unrest was an indefinite need for joy. The second tenet of critical race theory (CRT) states that racism is a “norm” in American society (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Hiraldo, 2010) and this was witnessed clearly during the summer of 2020. The voices and experiences of Black people play an essential role in explaining racial dynamics. Hearing, seeing, and living the experiences of the past two years within the pandemic brought fatigue for many of us. However, joy also exists on the battlefield. The knowledge that generations of Black freedom fighters loved us so much that they gave their life so that we could fight today brings us Black joy (Dillard, 2019). This joy manifests through music, art, words, and other creative and expressive avenues (Love, 2019). Thus, pleasure and resistance occur in a symbiotic relationship. We would perish if we did not have either. One of the implications of doing this research is that the counterargument is that not everyone was afforded joy during unrest. Although this is true, many of us did not want to dwell on the somberness of where we were.

Also, centering Black joy does not serve to quell white fears or anxieties—Black joy is for the sanity of Black people. Please make no mistake; we are rightfully enraged; we are still enraged, and Black joy serves as self-preservation, a reminder that we are human (Love, 2019; Tichavakunda, 2022). Because oppression has plagued the Black community for hundreds of years, 2020 was not surprising or new to Black people. Black people have created space for breathing (Howell et al., 2019) to resist white supremacy’s “omnipresent, intrusive, and pervasive nature” (as quoted in Joseph, 2020; Howell et al., 2019). Patterson et al. (2016) explained that structural racism plays a role in inequitable campus conditions for Black scholars and academics. William A. Smith (2004) coined RBF to describe when discriminatory and racist actions negatively impact Black people’s mental and physical health. Beyond the existence and continued impact of structural racism, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and state-sanctioned violence, Black joy goes beyond our history, present, and future.

American history supports that Black people have been unsafe, unwelcomed, and subject to physical and/or psychological harm just because we are Black. As such, acts of resistance, or resistance in general, are a necessary part of being Black. Many enslaved people could not overcome overwhelming odds to achieve their objectives of rebelling or escaping permanently and resisted by themselves, which was their only chance. History has shown that Black people have had to resist whenever possible. For example, according to Black (2005), enslaved people resisted the bondage system through intentional practices and beliefs.

Even when muting and filtering what is consumed through social media and television, the news of Black peoples’ suffering still finds its way into our thoughts. Thus, for the Black community, “being able to experience and share joy” (Johnson, 2020) is a necessary element in times of trouble. The racialized trauma we are subjected to can erode our peace and steadily erode our hope. There is no monolithic path to joy; however, during the COVID-19 pandemic, what we witnessed was a collective movement toward purposefully finding solace. For Black people worldwide, it is difficult to hold the pain and injustices we experience due to oppression in tension with the joy we experience in the face of that pain. Kleaver Cruz states, “In this sense, amplifying Black joy is not about dismissing or creating an “alternative” Black narrative that ignores our collective pain” (Cruz, 2022). Instead, it reminds us that we must choose happiness despite conscious efforts. The Black body is too often associated with pain and grief; thus, Black joy as a form of resistance makes space for embracing the positives of our very existence (Love, 2019).

COVID-19’s disproportionate effects on Black people

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health inequality among racial minorities in the United States (U.S.) (Krieger, 2020). In a letter to the editor published in the Journal of Internal Medicine during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers pointed to structural problems that exacerbated Black mortality and COVID-19 infection rates, including racism, housing segregation, education, and income disparities; and a lack of access to adequate healthcare (Anyane-Yeboa et al., 2020). Racial disparities are at the core of American healthcare systems and date as far back as the Jamestown settlement in the 17th century (Thomas & Casper, 1971). Such disparities reverberated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to disproportionate numbers of infections and death among Black people (Misir, 2021). States that reported higher populations of Black residents experienced disproportionately higher infection and death rates amongst Black people (Sehra et al., 2020). Of the ten states with the highest population of Black residents, Black people were overrepresented in COVID-19 deaths, with a 21% rate of death when Black people only accounted for 13.4% of the population in these states (Misir, 2021). A study examining patients hospitalized for COVID-19 comorbidity in Black patients compounded risks of death, and Black patients were more likely to be underinsured than non-Black patients (Mankowski et al., 2021).

Not only do disparities exist within infection and mortality rates, but also in access to COVID-19 vaccines. Inequitable vaccine dissemination was apparent at the state level, and Black residents were more likely to drive further than white residents to attain life-saving vaccines (Guo et al., 2021). During the first half of 2020, Black Americans were impacted at five times the rate of non-minority individuals and accounted for 50% of mortality in the state of Georgia, a state with one of the highest concentrations of Black residents in the country (COVID-19 Pandemic and Seniors, 2020). In Maryland, Black residents are only 30% of the state’s population, but by August 2020, they made up nearly 50% of known COVID-19 infections (Purnell et al., 2021). In Chicago, death and infection rates correlated with redlined 1 neighborhoods (Purnell et al., 2021). Home mortgage redlining in Chicago neighborhoods is a byproduct of New Deal policies that assessed the risk levels of neighborhoods based on quality, available amenities to residents, structural features of buildings, class, and racial and ethnic makeup of communities (Greer, 1998). The legacy of redlining created financial disenfranchisement of Chicago residents in urban areas, including decades of economic, social, and housing discrimination and racialized stratification (Wu, 2022).

Social class also compounded racial disparities in COVID-19 infection rates. For example, in New York City, 60% of COVID-19 deaths were among Black and Latino people, who also comprise a substantial proportion of essential workers (The Lancet, 2020). Black mortality rates were higher than that of white people because of their occupation in essential roles, including transportation, healthcare support, restaurants, maintenance and sanitation, and personal care or in-home care service (Rogers et al., 2020). What is more, “NH (non-Hispanic) Black people disproportionately occupied the top nine occupations that placed them at high risk for contracting COVID-19 and for potentially infecting their households” (Rogers et al., 2020: 319).

Narrowing the focus to age and race, the elderly and children were even more vulnerable to infection. The early days of the pandemic showed that elderly populations were highly vulnerable to infection, with nursing homes that cared for larger populations of non-white residents reporting increased infection rates and deaths weekly (Li et al., 2020; Weech-Maldonad et al., 2021). Additionally, nursing home facilities with higher rates of non-white residents faced COVID-19 death rates that were 3.3 times higher than facilities with higher proportions of white elderly residents. This is likely associated with predominately non-white serving nursing homes being under-resourced areas with large amounts of residents (Gorges and Konetzka, 2021). Similar to the elderly population, Black children experienced a higher risk of COVID-19 infection (Bandi et al., 2020). Infection rates were more likely among Black children between the ages of 10 and 18 years, with obesity and socioeconomic status compounding risk factors (Mannheim et al., 2022).

Even though COVID-19 hit the world without warning, its impact and consequences are felt differently depending on who we are as individuals and as members of society. The World Health Organization’s report Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on Social Determinants of Health notes that “poor and unequal living conditions are the consequences of deeper structural conditions that together fashion the way societies are organized—poor social policies and programs, unfair economic arrangements, and bad politics” (World Health Organization, 2008). As a result, the effects of these multiple factors are disproportionately affecting Black communities in the U.S. By gaining a deeper understanding of social determinants of health, which are relevant to the current crisis, and of how they affect Black peoples’ health outcomes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we become more aware of the indivisibility of all human rights and the collective dimensions of health rights (Reyes, 2020).

Social injustice and the summer of 2020

The summer of 2020 marked a spike in social injustices and unrest resulting from state violence against Black Americans at the hands of police and private citizens. The 2020 presidential election served as the backdrop of the summer. Americans watched the election and social unrest play out through presidential primary debates, the 24-hour news cycle, and a contingent presidential race that many hoped would result in change for Black communities across the nation. On May 25, 2020, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police was recorded and quickly went viral, sparking protests across the country and meeting the ire of Donald Trump, who throughout his presidency, took a staunch approach to systemic policing (Bitecofer, 2020; Jacobson, 2020). Following the murders of both Breonna Taylor in March 2020 and George Floyd in May 2020, nationwide protests called for the defunding of local police leading to major U.S. cities like Los Angeles and New York City to cut millions of dollars in police funding (Cobbina-Dungy et al., 2022). Although not murdered by police, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered at the hands of white vigilantes emboldened by Whiteness and policing (Vila et al., 2021). Like the 2012 vigilante killing of Trayvon Martin, white people’s need to patrol public spaces and residential neighborhoods is reminiscent of the Antebellum South 2 slave patrols that created terror for the enslaved to prevent slave revolts (Thomas et al., 2020). Arbery’s murder pushed the conversation of racial injustice in America, while the Black Lives Matter 3 movement brought increased media attention and civil engagement through marches and petition activity (Nguyen et al., 2021). The founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement assert,

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity . . . How Black women bearing the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families is state violence. How Black queer and trans folks bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us, and that is state violence. 4

Black Lives Matter petitions a reexamination of the systemic racism embedded in all facets of life for Black people in the U.S. The aftermath of George Floyd’s death and ensuing protests impacted perceptions of Black people, policing in America, and reparations for slavery (Curtis, 2021). Floyd’s death exacerbated emotions among racialized minorities disproportionately impacted by an ongoing pandemic. Colebrook (2020) wrote that,

The protests that responded to this murder retroactively brought attention to recent murders of other Black men and women and in so doing drew upon the slowing down of time in a pandemic, the general sense of unrest and frustration of lockdown, and a loss of faith in the world (np).

Media analysis of social unrest showed journalists served to delegitimize and minimize the violence and injustices at the 2020 protests through the use of verbiage that minimized the level of violence brought on protesters by police and the use of language that framed protesters as a threat to the public safety (Reid & Craig, 2021). Despite the COVID-19 pandemic raging in the summer of 2020, these instances of state violence did not quell calls for social justice through organized marches throughout the U.S., prompting the 2020 March on Washington (Cobbina et al., 2021). The original March on Washington occurred during the height of the Civil Rights Movement on August 28, 1963, when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his infamous “I Have a Dream” speech (De Avila, 2020). The 2020 march called on support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by calling out systemic oppression against Black lives. As a result, the march encouraged Americans from all backgrounds to vote out Donald Trump, who represented a regression to racist ideology (Wines and Kavi, 2020).

Black joy is a means of survival

“Joy is an important element of happiness. It is sometimes the difference between striving and thriving. One must nurture the joy in one’s life so that it reaches full bloom.”

-Maya Angelou, Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou, 2014

Black joy is neither new nor inconsequential. In the face of unprecedented circumstances such as the COVID-19 outbreak and the racial injustices of the summer of 2020, research on the Black community is sorely lacking in naming and highlighting Black joy. We lean on other scholars to define Black joy as the acknowledgment and celebration of our Blackness despite existing conditions where this Blackness is under constant attack (Dillard, 2019; Love, 2019; Tichavakunda, 2022). Thus, the findings from our study capture the examination of Black joy at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We needed Black joy to nourish our souls and to survive. To better grasp the context surrounding this study, we explore three themes that surfaced during the early days of the pandemic as it relates to Black joy:

  • 1. Songs of Survival,

  • 2. Creative Outlets, and

  • 3. Mind, Body, Soul.

The themes assist us in understanding both the experiences of Black people during the pandemic and the need for joy for the Black community. As the Black community was grappling with striving to survive, there was also a need to find joy, even in the small things, which means that resistance was Black joy in times of an anti-Black world. The themes below are three observations of Black joy and existing as human beings during the COVID-19 pandemic for Black people.

Songs of survival

Not new to African American culture, we witnessed a group of Black musical artists come together and form a space for the Black community to join in as a community through dancing and singing together virtually. Camp (2005) explains that Black enslaved people built a community by adopting a song-based approach to joy. According to West (2004),

“underground” approach to many community activities: dancing and flirting on a Saturday night; mixing with those who lived on different quarters; celebrating the marriages of young couples in love; risking the wrath of masters and patrollers in visiting wives and children ... (p.158).”

According to Sowande M. Mustakeem, singing as a means of expression is profoundly embedded in African American culture (Lomax, 2018). It all started when African people were captured and transported across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. On the journey, enslaved people from various nations, tribes, and cultures used singing to communicate (Tinsley, 2008). According to a white shipmate who sailed to Africa four times between 1760 and 1770, through music, the enslaved were able to locate family, countrymen, and women (Jordan, 2016). Kenyatta D. Berry states, “Music was a way for enslaved Africans to express their feelings, whether it was sorrow, joy, inspiration, or hope. Songs were passed down from generation to generation throughout slavery. These songs were influenced by African and religious traditions and would later form the basis for what is known as “Negro Spirituals”” (Berry, 2017). These songs were influenced by African and religious traditions and would later form the basis for what is known as “Negro Spirituals” (Perkins, 1922; Lovell, 1939; White, 1983). Through observation, social media, news, and conversations, there was a call for a force to heal.

This brings us to “VERZUZ,” social media battles created and curated by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, two well-known music producers and geniuses. During the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, VERZUZ was started as a virtual DJ battle. Within a three-hour session, two musicians, predominantly R&B and hip-hop artists, showcased their discographies in two 10-song rounds (VERZUS TV, 2022). As the COVID-19 pandemic kept millions at home, VERZUZ offered a jubilant alternative to the tedium. Black music has always served as a unifying force and has also been used to galvanize people into political action” (as quoted in Thompson, 2020). Scholars have also noted music as art that brings Black people together (Perkins, 1922; Lovell, 1939; White, 1983).

Creative outlets

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black community tapped into creative streams in order to stay connected through community. We began to see an uptick in social movements, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, and more representation in the fight for social justice from communities outside the Black community. Still, even after the nationwide protests of the summer of 2020, educational calls to action, and organizational change, Tony McDade, Amir Johnson, Chandra Moore, and countless others would be murdered by police. It is clear that inevitably, we will suffer another public loss in our community, as we witnessed throughout the year 2022 alone. So, what does Black liberation in conservative America mean? As Black people, we must understand and value our shared Blackness and understand the complexities that come within the spectrum of Blackness. We realize our Blackness in its fullest liberation when we center our work and resources toward those most marginalized within that spectrum, which exist within the realm of white cisgender heteropatriarchal capitalist global supremacy. This also translates to academia and our professional lives, whether that be the administrator, faculty, or student. We are tasked to educate our white colleagues on diversity and racism while not afforded the space to breathe. This is why it is critical to identify outlets to express your expressiveness. The COVID-19 pandemic established new ways to love oneself through creative outlets. Lizzo, an American singer, rapper, and songwriter states, “I don’t think that loving yourself is a choice. I think that it’s a decision that has to be made for survival” (Opinion Lizzo, 2022).

For many, the pandemic separated us from loved ones far and near. However, the Black community invested time and effort into bringing families into their homes through virtual platforms. We saw virtual celebrations and gatherings through the Zoom platform (weddings, baby showers, and graduations) (Imber-Black, 2020). More outlets of creativity, such as investing efforts into coping mechanisms through emotional strategies (another form of resistance), served to protect oneself from the ongoing injustices broadcasted. According to Mercier et al. (2022),

Black U.S. Americans employed coping strategies that distracted them from the pandemic (avoidant coping), protected themselves and others from susceptibility to the virus (self-sufficient coping), and used social connection (socially supported coping), although differently than prior to the pandemic (p.406).

So, while the Black community was taking on sewing, interests in art, and cooking (Imber-Black, 2020) in many ways, creative outlets served as coping strategies to deal with the complex realities faced by the Black community. Our minds needed tranquility, our bodies needed rest, and our souls longed for rejuvenation.

Culminating the celebration of Black joy through community, the Biden Administration in 2021 made Juneteenth the U.S.’ 12th federal holiday (PBS NewsHour, 2021). A holiday initially celebrated by the formerly enslaved and their descendants since 1865, it represents the date the last of the formerly enslaved were freed from bondage in Galveston, TX, on June 19, 1865, after the Civil War ended and two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (Taylor, 1995). Although the holiday’s genesis is in Texas, throughout the years, its celebrations have spread throughout Black communities across the U.S., resulting in national recognition.

Mind, body, and soul

In her outline of the causes and consequences of Black Americans’ losses, Yancy (2020) identifies systemic inequities, historical traumas, disenfranchisement, and rising mental health risks among Black people. Myers et al. (2015) suggests Black people, due to stress from institutionalized racism, develop resilience strategies. Because the inherent strengths embodied in Black culture are tied to our fight for survival, mental, physical, and emotional health play critical roles in Black peoples’ well-being (Loeb et al., 2018). Being at ease or preferring joy does not exclude suffering or tragedy, nor does it imply that what is occurring is acceptable. It means that we make the deliberate decision to survive even though our lives are in danger, and we have no influence on how others treat us.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, shelter-in-place guidelines and quarantine restrictions limited what activities we could engage in. Additionally, many people were isolated because of the restrictions and guidelines as they battled COVID-19 and/or tried to keep their families and loved ones safe from the virus. Such isolation added an unexpected mental health dimension to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the pandemic triggered a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide (WHO, 2022). Some factors contributing to possible mental health issues included isolation, loneliness, fear of infection, grief from losing loved ones, and financial worries (WHO, 2022). In addition to COVID-19, Black people were also vulnerable to the trauma of racialized violence that was often broadcast for the world to see (Phillips, 2020). As a result, many turned to therapy and counseling to mitigate the mental strain of the pandemic. Black people, who have a historical aversion and distrust of therapy and counseling (Harris et al., 2020), engaged in mental health-seeking behaviors. For example, Black mental health providers were overwhelmed with the number of Black patients scheduling appointments and reaching out for referrals and resources (Rockett, 2020). This context demonstrates two things about 2020: 1) Black people prioritized taking control of their liberation through putting themselves first for their fortitude, and 2) there is an increased need for culturally safe structural change as well as mental health providers of color to meet the growing mental health needs of Black communities.

Discussion

This study is necessary for several reasons. On a local level, this study can assist the Black community in strategizing and navigating individual and institutional oppression they may experience on and off campus. Prior literature supports the need to explore and incorporate elements of Black joy in how we teach and support Black students (Dillard, 2019; Love, 2019; Tichavakunda, 2022). Even though this is not solely the work of Black scholars, policymakers should collaborate with Black scholars and students, as well as people from local Black communities, to incorporate their perspectives into the co-production of policies. For higher education at large, this is a potential model for institutions. Educators and higher education practitioners can view the findings of this study as a model for programs and interventions to coproduce with Black academics and students for their benefit and more comprehensively will, in the end, support all academics and students. Lastly, this study can potentially support theories on Black joy within academia and how to provide a better foundation for understanding the role of joy for the Black community in times of unrest.

For many of us, times of unrest inevitably display pain, hurt, and trauma as we mourn the loss of our brothers and sisters during turbulent times. Nevertheless, as we look forward, never forgetting these losses we have endured and witnessed, let us remember that joy is essential to our well-being. If you do not have anyone who can validate that your need for rest and levity is essential, allow us to do the honors. Just because these incidents happen frequently does not mean it is not traumatic. Remember that normalized trauma is still trauma. There is a reason why Audre Lorde’s assertion that self-care is fundamentally politically overused in this debate. Lorde (1988) states, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Taking time for deep breathing, laughter, and rest, will help to relieve anxiety and tension. It is impossible to fight for justice if you are mentally and physically drained.

Conclusion

Embracing Black joy means celebrating our Blackness despite existing in spaces where our Blackness is viewed as a threat (Love, 2019). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest following the reoccurrences of public Black death marked times when our Black existence was threatened. As such, we sought Black joy to remember our humanness and history and maintain connections. Our joy was maintained and sustained through songs of survival, creative outlets, and mind, body, and soul practices. We challenge scholars to continue exploring and uncovering manifestations of Black joy for Black students they support and serve. We challenge Black scholars to explore and uncover what Black joy looks like as they navigate predominantly non-Black environment spaces and conditions. Black people deserve joy, and we have a long history of creating and sustaining joyous practices, places, and spaces. We encourage our fellow Black scholars to do whatever it takes to protect their minds and souls from whatever pain or trauma they are experiencing right now because we need to be spiritually and mentally prepared for whatever comes next.

Notes

1.

Redlining was a discriminatory housing policy and practice used to limit racially minoritized peoples’ access to homeownership and wealth generation. Redlining occurred in many distinct ways, including banks and others withholding financial resources and services from potential and current residents in neighborhoods classified as “hazardous” or “undesirable” due to the racial makeup of the residents (Purnell et al., 2021).

2.

Antebellum south refers to the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the start of the American Civil War in 1861, within which American slavery and anti-Black racial ideologies originated as a significant component of Southern culture.

3.

The Black Lives Matter Movement was started with a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) after George Zimmerman, who was a neighborhood watch captain at the time, was acquitted of the murder of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin (Rickford, 2016). The grassroots movement strives to bring focus to human rights issues for Black people.

4.

“About the Black Lives Matter Network,” available at http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

Footnotes

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Leslie Ekpe https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1353-5560

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