Black Joy

By: Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts

Narrated by: Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Instructional

With deeply personal and uplifting essays in the vein of Black Girls Rock!, You Are Your Best Thing, and I Really Needed This Today, this is “a necessary testimony on the magic and beauty of our capacity to live and love fully and out loud” (Kerry Washington).

When Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts wrote an essay on Black joy for The Washington Post, she had no idea just how deeply it would resonate. But the outpouring of positive responses affirmed her own lived experience: that Black joy is not just a weapon of resistance, it is a tool for resilience.

With this book, Tracey aims to gift her community with a collection of lyrical essays about the way joy has evolved, even in the midst of trauma, in her own life. Detailing these instances of joy in the context of Black culture allows us to recognize the power of Black joy as a resource to draw upon, and to challenge the one-note narratives of Black life as solely comprised of trauma and hardship.

“Lewis-Giggetts etches a stunning personal map that follows in her ancestors’ footsteps and highlights their ability to take control of situational heartbreak and tragedy and make something better out of it….A simultaneously gorgeous and heartbreaking read” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Writing style was like fresh poetry and storytelling at the same time.

Uplifting mostly, but definitely written by someone young enough to have more life to live which will change her outlook many times over.

Well written, inspiring and absolutely relatable!

Whew! It would take a dissertation to adequately unpack the gems in this book! My favorite chapter is Chapter 7- “Smells like Blackness” which poetically and masterfully expresses the universality and collective diasporic experience of black joy! TRULY “the bite of our bounce back.” Well done!

Joyfully Masterpiece 🥰

I loved everything about this book. From start to the bold finish.The author is brilliant and gifted with her finesse for weaving painful prose and stark truths and with golden threads of the power of Black joy🙏🏾🤲🏾✊🏾💕

A must read/listen!!

To anyone who loves, knows or is a black woman this book gives insight into many varied experiences and speaks life.

Review of this book

It was a delight hearing this book. experiencing it. listening to her references oh it just made my heart glad. thank you Tracy!!!!