The holidays are a time when many people are forced to face their grief, individually and collectively. As we navigate the season, let us remember that grief should be embraced with tenderness and curiosity.
The nurse offered pills to lower his blood pressure. He chose to work out instead. In his first for Grassroots Thinking, Antoine Davis shares the physical and mental health benefits of exercise, and how he reversed high blood pressure without medication.
Prison Writers
Incarcerated writer Xandan Gulley writes about why he rejects gender-affirming care due to a change in drugs purchased by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and how this process has led to feelings of a slow death.
Prison Writers
A personal essay by teacher and writer, Steph Curry, on how capitalism shapes our family dynamics and influences our career decisions.
Essays
Writer and healer, Darnell Lamont Walker, reflects on the sacred labor of death work and the radical act of being present as our people transition. Walker reminds us that Black folks deserve more than to have our last breath swallowed in a sterile room with no one to call our name.
Death Week
Incarcerated writer E. Paris Whitfield shares a story of personal connection with a fellow prisoner through literature, and how a single fashion choice left a profound impact on his life.
Death Week
Death worker, mare leon, exposes how capitalism and anti-Black violence shape not only how we live, but how we die, and demands that movements begin to plan for death with the same urgency we plan for survival.
Death Week
First, there were postcards of lynchings sent from post to post. Now, videos go viral within hours of posting. What's the point of these images of Black death? Who are they for? Whose silence makes the killing possible again? Read more for a personal essay on the public spectacle of Black death.
Essays
Organizer Ryan Mills shares his firsthand experience as one of the organizers of the 2025 National Black Radical Organizing Conference in Indianapolis, IN. "This was truly an event that I will remember for the rest of my life."
Opinion
Black History Month focuses on our past, but Black August focuses on our fight and struggle. To honor our freedom fighters and political prisoners during Black August, I committed to its principles: fast, train, study, and fight! A personal essay about one contributor's observance of Black August.
Social Life
How Baltimore area children organized for a brighter future by imagining improvements to a local playground.
Social Life