“I Wasn't Going to Do a Hunger Strike, but in the End My Body Paid the Price:” An Annotated Study of the Lived Experiences of Black Lives Matter Student Activists Between 2014 and 2016

Abstract

After Black Lives Matter activists demonstrated in Ferguson in 2014, many national protests erupted and included voices from college students who soon brought demonstrations onto college campuses across the United States. Allegedly in a “post-racial” era, 2014 saw the first of many student protests against racist violence and inequity. By the end of 2015, college students at over 80 schools nationwide submitted lists of demands to their respective universities protesting racial inequality and injustice. This study, focusing on the years 2014 to 2016 at the brink of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLMM) and the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), examines six undergraduate women leaders’ experiences using in-depth oral history interviews. The purpose of this study was to explore how the undergraduate women developed into student activists, discover their historical inspirations and understand how they coped with their efforts. Using a unique methodological approach that fuses oral history, ethnography, mental wellness studies and dialectical conversations, I annotate the interviews of six BLM women activists and contextualize their experiences using secondary sources on campus movement activism to illustrate how radical self-care and mental wellness was a result of the trauma and joy of student organizing during BLM. By employing an interdisciplinary approach centered on dialogue and narrative to explore the women's lived experiences, seeking to understand their intellectual and political development while organizing, and conceptualizing the effects of activism on the body, this study found that six undergraduate Black women activists during #BlackLivesMatter borrowed from a historical past, sometimes unknowingly, for guidance in organizing strategies. Consequently, they experienced physiological and emotional distress in the same manner as their civil rights predecessors. Analyzing these women's reflections through the lens of Black feminist scholars like Stephanie Y. Evans, Barbara Ransby, and others contributes to our understanding of social movement organizing, particularly on U.S. campuses, and demands a reckoning with mental wellness and reclaiming of radical self-care. Hence, these findings have implications for student activists of the past, present, and future to consider not only strategies in organizing but also long-term strategies for self-preservation and self-care.