Rooted in the ways Black women understand their lives, this collection archives practices of healing, mothering, and advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recognizing that Black women have been living in pandemics as far back as colonialism and enslavement, this volume acknowledges that records of the past—from the 1918 flu pandemic to the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic—often erase the existence and experiences of Black women as a whole. Writing against this archival erasure, this collection consciously recenters the real-time experiences and perspectives of care, policy concerns, grief, and joy of Black women throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nineteen contributors from interdisciplinary fields and diverse backgrounds explore Black feminine community, consciousness, ethics of care, spirituality, and social critique. They situate Black women’s multidimensional experiences with COVID-19 and other violences that affect their lives. The stories they tell are connected and interwoven, bound together by anti-Black gendered COVID necropolitics and commitments to creating new spaces for breathing, healing, and wellness.

Ultimately, this time-warping analysis shows how Black women imagine a more just society, rapidly adapt to changing experiences, and innovate ethics of care even in the midst of physical distancing, which can be instructive for thinking of new ways of living both during and beyond the era of COVID-19.

Contributors
Shamara Wyllie Alhassan
Sharnnia Artis
Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards
Candace S. Brown
Jenny Douglas
Kaja Dunn
Onisha Etkins
Rhonda M. Gonzales
Endia Hayes
Ashley E. Hollingshead
Kendra Jason
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
Stacie LeSure
Janaka B. Lewis
Michelle Meggs
Nitya Mehrotra
Sherine Andreine Powerful
Marjorie Shavers
Breauna Marie Spencer
Tehia Starker Glass
Amber Walker

Julia S. Jordan-Zachery is a professor and chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Wake Forest University. She is the author and editor of several books, including Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag and the award-winning Black Women, Cultural Images and Social Policy.

Shamara Wyllie Alhassan is an assistant professor of religious studies with a focus on the Black experience in the Americas at Arizona State University. She is an award-winning writer who specializes in African women’s radical epistemologies.

"With essays from Black women, this book deeply refutes how the mainstream media have positioned Black women as victims, emphasizing instead the myriad ways that Black women have created and deepened the practice of engaged community...The essays are informative, emotionally charged, and beautifully written."—Zenzele Isoke, author of Urban Black Women and the Politics of Resistance— -