Health

Grandma’s Hands is a song about comfort, maternal love, and memory. Bill Withers portrays his love for his grandmother through the imagery of her hands and the actions they performed, bringing the listener into those intimate moments and allowing them to substitute their own grandmother into the picture.

We Charge Genocide is a grassroots organization in Chicago that takes its name from a 1951 petition filed to the United Nations protesting human rights abuses against Black people in the United States. In 2014, they submitted a report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture entitled "Police Violence Against Chicago's Youth of Color."

BPP Free Breakfast and Health Clinics  - can be removed since both exist as independent constellations now

As discrimination against African Americans was widespread in the 1930s, many establishments refused to cater to African American travelers. They faced inconveniences ranging from denial to food and lodging to arbitrary arrest. It was then that Victor H. Green, an African-American New York City mailman published the Negro Motorist Green Book. It served as a guidebook for African American travelers and provided a list of hotels, restaurants, taverns, service stations, and other establishments throughout the country that served African American patrons. The book was published yearly from 1936-1964 to help increase the safety of African American travelers throughout the United States, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed multiple types of racial discrimination that had made the Green Book necessary.

In 1968 the first People’s Free Medical Clinics were established by the Black Panther Party as an alternative to Great Society community health centers which were often underfunded. The clinics mainly provided first aid and basic health services such as vaccinations and vitals. In 1971 the clinics began educating and screening black populations for sickle cell anemia. Yet, law enforcement harassment and a lack of consistent volunteer effort eventually lead to the closure of these clinics.

Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler Truesdale founded DC Legendary Musicians in order to care for the legacies of professional musicians in Washington, DC. The organization seeks to support musicians and highlight their contributions to DC's music scenes.

Sometimes an act of care is a single hug. When Sha’Carri Richardson won the 100m at the Olympic trials in June 2021, effectively becoming the fastest woman in the world, she ran into the stands to hug her grandmother. That hug, and the laying on of hands from her grandmother, Betty Harp, spoke volumes and revealed some of the intergenerational intimacies of Black life.

Umoja Health, founded by Dr. Kim Rhoads, is a group dedicated to testing Black people for Covid-19, in part to present a more accurate picture of positivity rates in Black communities. Working first in Oakland, California, Dr. Rhoads put together a team of community health practitioners to mount testing pop-up sites throughout the city. These sites were culturally informed, including DJ’s and goodie bags. Umoja Health has worked to keep Black people safe by providing accurate data and providing accurate information about Covid-19 to Black communities.

Dr. Kim Gallon founded COVID Black in April Of 2020 as a rapid response research project to the emerging covid pandemic in the United States. The team at COVID Black works on a number of fronts: Early in the pandemic they called for covid data to be released by race both federally and at the local level in order to begin to account for the ways in which Black people were being disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They also created “Homegoing,” a projected focused on “remembering black lives and restoring humanity.” Homegoing utilizes data from the press, especially the Black Press, in order to celebrate the lives of those lost during the pandemic. Currently, Covid Black is also conducting oral histories with Black medical professionals in order to document and better understand their experiences in the pandemic.