Lavender Fields: Black Women Experiencing Fear, Agency, and Hope in the Time of COVID-19

Lavender Fields uses autoethnography to explore how Black girls and women are living with and through COVID-19. It centers their pain, joys, and imaginations for a more just future as we confront all the inequalities that COVID-19 exposes. Black women and girls in the United States are among the hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of illnesses, deaths, evictions, and increasing economic inequality. Riffing off Alice Walker’s telling of her search for Zora Neal Hurston, the authors of these essays and reflections offer raw tellings of Black girls’ and women’s experiences written in real time, as some of the contributors battled COVID-19 themselves. The essays center Black girls and women and their testimonies in hopes of moving them from the margin to the center. With a diversity of voices and ages, this volume taps into the Black feminine interior, that place where Audre Lorde tells us that feelings lie, to access knowledge—generational, past, and contemporary—to explore how Black women navigate COVID-19. Using womanism and spirituality, among other modalities, the authors explore deep feelings, advancing Black feminist theorizing on Black feminist praxis and methodology. In centering the stories of Black girls and women’s experiences with COVID-19, this work brings much-needed justice and equity to conversations about the pandemic. Just as Walker worked diligently to find Hurston, Lavender Fields attempts to “find” Black women amid all we are experiencing, ensuring visibility and attention. Contributors Tamaya Bailey reelaviolette botts-ward Kyrah K. Brown Brianna Y. Clark Kenyatta Dawson LeConté J. Dill Maryam O. Funmilayo Brandie Green Courtney Jackson Sara Jean-Francois Julia S. Jordan-Zachery Angela K. Lewis-Maddox Annet Matebwe Mbali Mazibuko Radscheda Nobles Nimot Ogunfemi J. Mercy Okaalet Chizoba Uzoamaka Okoroma Peace Ossom-Williamson Elizabeth Peart