Black Women's Yoga History

Memoirs of Inner Peace

By: Stephanie Y. Evans, Jana Long - foreword

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo

Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Examines how Black women elders have managed stress, emphasizing how self-care practices have been present since at least the mid-19th century, with roots in African traditions.

How have Black women elders managed stress? In Black Women's Yoga History, Stephanie Y. Evans uses primary sources to answer that question and to show how meditation and yoga from eras of enslavement, segregation, and migration to the Civil Rights, Black Power, and New Age movements have been in existence all along. Life writings by Harriet Jacobs, Sadie and Bessie Delany, Eartha Kitt, Rosa Parks, Jan Willis, and Tina Turner are only a few examples of personal case studies that are included here, illustrating how these women managed traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression. In more than 50 yoga memoirs, Black women discuss practices of reflection, exercise, movement, stretching, visualization, and chanting for self-care. By unveiling the depth of a struggle for wellness, memoirs offer lessons for those who also struggle to heal from personal, cultural, and structural violence. This intellectual history expands conceptions of yoga and defines inner peace as mental health, healing, and wellness that is both compassionate and political.

©2021 State University of New York (P)2021 Tantor

Excellent

I highly recommend this book to all black women. It is a great resource and will empower you. I also loved the information regarding those in academia as well.

Didn’t know this is what I needed

As a lover of black history and any kind of wisdom that allows me to avoid extra stress, I found this book to be my source of self care, self talk and excitement for the 16/17 hours it took to finish listening to. Masterfully put together. The combination of black women history, resources and the airy goes analytical mind put me in a space I didn’t know I needed to be in. Triggers definitely there. While on my path to self discovery, this book is one on my top 3 list.

Not What I Expected

First: The title of the book and it’s descriptions online imply that this book will provide advice from memoirs on how these women used yoga in every day life. And while the memoirs do offer ways in which the authors directly or indirectly practiced yoga, the overarching common thread is that the context of the memoirs are violence, trauma, and abuse. I think this is a useful read, but I honestly would not have purchased if I knew ahead of time how triggering this would feel to read. As a black woman yoga teacher, I was hoping for practical wisdom on how historic African American women lived their yoga practice on and/or off of the mat so that I could help empower other black women to do the same.

Second: I understand that this is a collection of memoirs, but the author’s writing style is quite dry. It feels like I am reading her final draft of a dissertation. I don’t find it to be a captivating nor enjoyable experience.

I was eager to recommend it to every black woman I knew before reading but now I think that due to the nature of the sensitive topics discussed, I would refrain from recommending it unless I knew the person would find it relevant and timely for their healing journey.