In a reality outlined by colonial violence, targeted exclusion, and systemic oppression against Black communities, Black joy has always been an essential anchor of survival.
We hear Black joy in the music that lights up every space — from church pews to neighborhood blocks. We feel it in the way we move our bodies, harnessing the power of dance to share our identities, express ourselves, and connect with our community. We see it every day, in the family recipes and community cookouts, in the bellowing laughs of our aunties and grandfathers, in the way we show up for each other, time and time again.
Exuding Black joy is more than just a sign of strength — it’s an act of resistance.
Harnessing the Magic of Black Joy in Philanthropy
As funders, investing in Black liberation means more than simply acknowledging our struggles. It also means highlighting our joy.
So many of the dominant narratives in philanthropy focus on Black trauma. And while it’s important that we don’t dismiss the injustices that our communities face on a daily basis, it’s also integral that Blackness doesn’t become a synonym for pain and injustice. Instead, philanthropy should honor the struggles of Black identities while platforming spaces of recovery, creativity, and connection that stem from our experiences. We should advocate for systems change while giving Black communities the freedom to imagine who they are, what they desire, and how they interact with the world beyond their trauma.
As Kleaver Cruz, author of The Black Joy Project, said, “[Black Joy] is about holding the pain and injustice…in tension with the joy we experience. It’s about using that joy as an entry into understanding the oppressive forces we navigate through as a means to imagine and create a world free of them.”
How Black Future Co-op Fund Uplifts Joy
For us at the Black Future Co-op Fund, platforming Black joy means connecting with our community, collaborating with Black changemakers, and investing in organizations that are embedded in communities around Washington state.
Here are a few organizations around the state celebrating Black expression, creativity, and joy:
- Located in Seattle’s historically Black Central District neighborhood, LANGSTON’s innovative programs foster community partnerships that center Black art, artists, and audiences while honoring the enduring legacy of Seattle’s Black Central Area.
- BLCK WINS is a nonprofit media project dedicated to shifting how Black history is taught, seen, and understood. They highlight the triumphs, not just the tragedies, of Black history, and center Black youth while creating space for everyone to engage and learn.
- TERRAIN believes that a more just and vibrant Spokane is possible through creativity, economic opportunity, and the collective action of everyone who dares to create. They offer large scale art events, gallery spaces, professional development programs for artists, and more in service of Black artistry and creative expression.
Radical Black joy is revolutionary. It is looking in the face of injustice and refusing to let it define you. It is creating beauty, culture, and art in spite of the pain. To return to a collective happiness that has systematically tried to strip us of our humanity.
Radical Black joy is revolutionary, and to invest in it, is to invest in Black liberation.