The Black Joy Project: A Literary and Visual Love Letter to How We Thrive
Kleaver Cruz
HarperCollins/Mariner Books
Black Joy is always held in tension with broader systemic wounds. It is a powerful, historically important salve that allows us to keep going and reimagine new ways of being.
The Black Joy Project captures these dual realities to incredible, unforgettable effect as an extension of a real-world initiative of the same name. It has become a source of healing and regeneration for Black people of all backgrounds and identities. In words and art, it puts joy on the same track as protest and resistance … because that is how life is actually lived. Uprisings in the street, with music as accompaniment. Heartbreaking funerals followed by second line parades. Microaggressions in the office, then coming home to a warm hug and a garden of lilacs. The list goes on.