Black Joy and the Years Ahead: A Manifesto for Survival

Even our survival is a radical act. It is not the antithesis of thriving—it is its prerequisite.

In the landmark PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. veered from the language of persistence and reconciliation that are often quoted at this time of year. He gives voice to something raw...and telling. “I’m tired of marching,” he admits while wiping sweat from his brow. “I’m tired of marching for something that should have been mine at birth.” This gut-wrenching expression of Dr. King’s humanity lays bare the core paradox of freedom work: the relentless fight for inherent rights that should never have required a battle. I’m thinking a lot about this today as we celebrate Dr. King’s life and work. As many prepare to (not) watch the presidential inauguration, that same exhaustion reverberates. The utter despair on the faces of many who anticipate this new administration’s dismantling of everything King was working toward—on the day we honor his birth, no less— underscores a shared question: How did we get here?

Thankfully, history reminds us that we already know.

The history some seek to erase persists in the books on my shelves and in the stories of my elders. And while these narratives and scholarship are often uncomfortable to reckon with, the truth remains: the fear and uncertainty many feel today are byproducts of trying to legislate the hearts of men who have been hardened by the pursuit of unchecked power; who have no desire to attend to any moral standard.

In my grandmother’s words, “a tiger doesn’t change its stripes.”

In my 2022 book, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration, I describe Black joy as both a birthright and a necessary resource, especially in times of crisis. Sure, joy is a universal, physiological response to pleasure accessible to everyone. But Black joy is that same physiological response to pleasure housed in a body that must live in a very particular, often traumatic, historical and political context. So Black joy inevitably shows up differently. Feels different. And by virtue of that definition, Black joy is an essential weapon in the arsenal of those who want to enact change in this next season. We just have to be careful not to tap into that joy in superficial ways.

Too often, people reduce Black joy to its external expressions—singing, dancing, laughing, creating—as though these are its only dimensions. I regularly get calls to provide a list five random acts of joy people can implement in their day or to create a playlist of ten songs that exemplify Black Joy. That’s perfectly fine. It’s meaningful to have recognizable images of joy—maybe even more so now. But the unintended consequence of this surface-level presentation of our joy is that it tends to gloss over the deep, sustaining, ancestral, revolutionary features of it. The external demonstrations of Black joy are too often used as a way to mask the very real and righteous rage and sorrow people feel.

Listen, I would never, EVER encourage people to show up at the inauguration dancing, singing, and marching—not even in protest. Not with the weight and evidence of violence possible. Not with the fear I know lurks even in my own heart right now. Likewise, we should never use joy to cover up our grief and rage. Black joy is not camouflage for our pain or a distraction from our grief. It is the container that holds them both. Joy does not erase sorrow; it transforms how we carry it. Grief and rage are useful for pointing us in the direction of our next move, and joy, with its cousin, hope, helps heal us in the process. As indigenous writer, Kaitlin Curtice wrote in her book, Glory Happening, “We hold hope and despair, one in each arm, and we cradle them close to our chest, because they both have something important to say at every moment.”

So, where do we go from here? For Black and Brown communities, survival itself is a radical act. We must do what our ancestors have always done: turn inward, fortify our emotional and physical safety, and cultivate spaces for joy and collective soul care. Survival gets a bad rap in the age of social media wellness gurus who tout thriving as the goal without any context on the very real limitations to thriving experienced by strategically and intentionally marginalized people. If anything, survival is not the antithesis of thriving—it is its prerequisite. It’s when we take the pieces of whatever is left of our lives and build something anew. And as Toni Morrison said, maybe we only survive in part. Maybe wholeness is simply not attainable in the way we’ve framed it. But “the grandeur of life is that attempt.”

Survival, however, is not the only task at hand. In addition, we must center our attention on personal and collective healing. That’s the next leg of this race. And we can use the access afforded us by the painful work done by our ancestors to run it. They gave us open doors and we can give our children the tools to know how to repair their central nervous systems, take care of their bodies and minds, and take care of each other. None of that is contingent on the elimination of racism. It can’t be.

Consider those who lived through the promise of Reconstruction and into the repealing of the rights given to us post-Emancipation. Those who survived the Red Summer of 1919 or the race massacres of Tulsa and Rosewood. Think of those who lived through the grief of losing thousands of fathers, sons, mothers, and daughters to lynching in the early 20th century. In every instance, our people survived but the legacy of our ancestors is not just one of endurance, but also of creation and joy. Through it all, our historically Black colleges and university found a way to stay open (it’s not the first time their funding has been threatened). Our musicians found a way to create whole musical genres that would define what American music is to this day. Our writers kept our stories and therefore, our history, alive. Our grandmothers found a way to rock and dance the pain of disrespect and diminishment in low-paying jobs as domestics out of their bodies--whether in the church house or juke joint (and sometimes both). We still laughed with abandon in the safety of our salons and barbershops. We sang with our whole chests, “This joy I have, the world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.”

The backlash to progress is inevitable. History has shown us that moments of advancement are often met with resistance. After every major human rights movement, there is violent pushback from those who desperately cling to the false security of a manufactured supremacy and the wet dreams that are capitalism and patriarchy. So if one happens to be living during one of those times—as I think we are—the terror and rage is real. But our joy is not fragile. It’s both defiance and declaration. Creating boundaries and safeguards for ourselves and our communities must now be an urgent and intentional practice with the goal being BOTH restoration and resistance.

If this feels like a very insular approach to the work of fighting injustice, perhaps it is. Exhaustion is always a very real signal that a pivot is necessary. For Black folks, our physical bodies need rest. Our emotional and spiritual selves need refreshment and guidance. Our collective body needs safety. So gatekeeping our joy—which includes our creativity and innovation—is a necessary mode for surviving the years and fears ahead.

May God hear our cries.

I love y’all.

tmlg