Tag Archives: Reimagining Black History

Voices

Reimagining Black History Month: Victoria Santos

(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Reagan Jackson. Read the full “Reimagining Black History Month” series on FrontPorch.Seattle.gov. Stories and profiles will be added throughout the month.)

Victoria Santos is a cofounder of the BIPOC ED Coalition of Washington State, a multicultural, cross-sector collaborative of 200+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color nonprofit leaders working in solidarity to promote wellness and restore resources in our region’s communities. She is also the director of the Center for Healing and Liberation, a home for transformative work, committed to the thriving of BIPOC community members and the liberation of everyone.

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Voices

OPINION | Reimagining Black History Month

by Reagan Jackson

(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Reagan Jackson. Read the full “Reimagining Black History Month” series on FrontPorch.Seattle.gov. Stories and profiles will be added throughout the month.)

The earliest memory I have of celebrating Black History Month was in the fourth grade. I attended a predominantly white school in Middleton, Wisconsin. One day, my mom noticed my backpack was much heavier than usual. She asked why I was taking so many books to school. I told her about the lesson from the day before where my teacher summed up Black history with one specific story, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This was long before Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s excellent Ted Talk about the dangers of a single story, long before I’d taken any social justice classes or learned any language to label that moment for the reductive, misguided, oppressive experience it was.

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Voices

‘Like Fine Wine, Black Joy Over Time’: The Necessity of Black Joy Narratives to Black Liberation

by Nacala Ayele

(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Reagan Jackson. Read the full “Reimagining Black History Month” series on FrontPorch.Seattle.gov. Stories and profiles will be added throughout the month.)

As a Joy Actualization Coach for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, I define joy as the internal sense of well-being, satisfaction, and contentment that is independent of external circumstances. For Black People, the necessity of prioritizing joy can be a hard sell. How are we supposed to be joyful in the face of viral Black death, police murders, racial, health, educational, and economic disparities that are driven by a white supremacist system, and the many other ways that the length and quality of our lives are diminished by white supremacy? During Black History Month, we do deep dives into historical trauma, tragedy, and oppression, all of which make it hard to consider joy as something that should be prioritized, much less as a tool for liberation.

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