Rest fuels resistance. Heading overseas can provide relief from racial trauma, and reignite the drive to fight for justice at home.
Credit: Nadira Jamerson
This winter, I felt paralyzed, not by cold, but by an inescapable sense of terror and grief. Wildfires devoured neighborhoods in my hometown of Los Angeles, displacing friends and family members. The Trump administration’s dismantling of DEI programs and its assault on Black America intensified. And as a Black queer woman, I watched the president strip away my rights, not through legislation, but by a barrage of executive orders targeting LGTBQ+ folks.
As a journalist, I couldn’t look away. But as a human, I needed a break.
So I left.
Inspired by revolutionary Black artists and activists who left the United States in search of rest and relief from anti-Blackness — think James Baldwin in Paris and Maya Angelou in Ghana — I headed to the United Kingdom and Europe.
#TravelForChange #EndRacism #CulturalAwareness
