One thing about Black folks is we’re gonna throw something on the grill. It’s what we do because food is often one of the most meaningful ways we exist in community with one another. Whether it’s a birthday or a funeral, when the grill comes out, it’s a family reunion.
Have you ever wondered about the roots of Black family reunions? Well, like most things, it dates back to slavery. Enslaved Black families were often intentionally broken up to rupture their bonds to each other and further dehumanize them. Following Emancipation, folks could finally go out and search for their spouses, children or siblings who had been sold away.
While it was no easy feat as enslavers did everything they could to interfere with these reunions, we persisted — as always.
Now over a hundred years later, it is still a prevalent tradition among Black families. For some folks, this looks like going through genealogy records, building family trees, and connecting with long lost relatives. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the reunions are on account of other celebratory events.
For my family, our reunions were born out of my great-grandparents 43rd wedding anniversary. After that, they began having them every year and reconnecting with family that had moved away or even learning about relatives they’d never met.
Family reunions in whatever forms they may take, are an intricate part of Black culture.
To honor this, our Black Joy Social Producer, MacKenzie Foy, curated a Family Reunion photoshoot while in the small close-knit community of Paducah, KY. The Black Joy team hopes this inspires you to go out and document memories with your own loved ones, or maybe even start your own family reunion tradition.
