Blessed Positionality

Dadria R. Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Burman University, where she previously served as the chair of the Psychology Department for 4 years. She has a passion for promoting wellness in families and communities, and her teaching and research interests include the areas of children and families, school-family-community collaboration, social justice advocacy, and multiculturalism.Charisse Southwell is an equity evaluator and mixed-methods researcher grounded in Afro-Caribbean traditions. Her work bridges pragmatic inquiry, Black feminist thought, and liberatory evaluation across nonprofit and community settings. She is passionate about decolonial praxis and systemic change efforts.Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, CEO of CRESTSprogram, LLC, is founding director of CTSR and past president of ACA and AMCD. An ACA Fellow, she researches trauma and systemic oppression. She’s published widely and presented globally across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

• List of Tables - Venus E. Evans-Winters, Foreword - Dadria Lewis, Charisse Southwell, and Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, Preface - Charisse Southwell, Part I Where We Begin: Black Womanhood and the Sacred Work of Knowing - Dadria Lewis, Charisse Southwell, and Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, 1 Reorienting Research through Black Women’s Epistemic - Aaminah Norris and José Ramón Lizárraga, 2 When I See You, I See Me: Reciprocal Recognition - Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, Part II Revolutionary Self-Love - Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, 3 (Re)storative (Re)membering: Exploring Black Womanhood, Black Hair - Gertrude Jenkins, 4 BLESsed Be A Black Girl: Creating Spaces of Care in the Classroom - Chandra R. Story, 5 Reclaiming our Health as a Place of Liberation - Dadria Lewis, Part III The Blessed Future - Dadria Lewis, Charisse Southwell, and Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, 6 The Second Juneteenth - Notes on Contributors