History + Culture

I am incredibly interested in the link between history and culture, especially for Black identities in the Americas. In many ways, our ancestry and memory inform who we are culturally; braided plantation escape routes have deepened a spiritual connection to Black hair; the familial feeling of a Black cookout overshadows the privileged history of July 4th; consistent gentrification erases a culture of shared land and community. Over and over, Blackness exists through the ways that joy—a form of resistance—persists despite traumatic history and present.