Black Solidarity Day

Every year Black Solidarity Day was a bit of a struggle. My mother was always on the fence about observing it. I watched her process it through conversations with her girlfriends. Them asking if she would be celebrating it and her saying she wasn't sure. Over and over. Then the day would come and she would say we're staying home "because it's Black Solidarity Day."

At the time I didn't understand this. There was no debate about other holidays. On MLK Day, I stayed home. On Veteran's Day, I stayed home. Now, I imagine my mother, a Home Health Aide, was trying to figure out if we could afford her missing a day of work. We stopped observing some time around when I start intermediate/middle school. It seems like it fell out of favor for many NYC Black families.

I've decided my family will be observing Black Solidarity Day from now on. In addition to avoiding consumerism, that day I will also make sure we are specifically celebrating the history of Black culture. Today I am reading from A Black Woman Did That by Malaika Adero, a graphic paperback and kind gift from one of my dearest friends. I'll also be reading Our Skin by Megan Madison. One of the reasons I was able to forget Black Solidarity Day is that I never understood why we were celebrating it nor had a cultural context for it. I plan to give more insight to this to my children. I want to be purposeful about Black culture, how rich it is, how beautiful it is. So they see the value in it and in themselves.