Womanism and Re-Imagining Black Women's Health Promotion

Abstract

Black women have been historically disenfranchised by the healthcare system. We apply a Womanist framework—a social change model developed by Black women scholars, including Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Clenora Hudson-Weems, Layli Philips and many others— to health promotion, reimagining Black women’s health grounded in a framework designed by Black women. Five modalities in particular—dialogue, harmonizing and coordinating, hospitality, mutual aid and social support, and mothering— present an opportunity for radical change within health promotion. We offer a consideration of how these modalities might be utilized to improve health promotion for Black women.