The family has been the bedrock of African American culture from times of slavery through the tumultuous days of mandated racial segregation. One of the most devastating aspects of the slavery experience was its ability to weaken and distort this highly revered institution; fortunately, those attempts were unsuccessful.
As the toils and tears of the civil rights movement yielded positive results, subsequent progress initiated dramatic shifts in cultural patterns and processes of family life. Waning of systemic barriers widened the world and made it more accessible, while family cohesiveness and identity became diluted and less essential for survival, making families more American and less African.
Despite progressive changes African Americans enjoyed through civil rights initiatives, daunting questions about origin, purpose, and the future of the race remained unanswered. In fact, those matters became even murkier as African Americans moved to embrace characteristic Western individualism.
Family Reunions: A Vehicle for Cohesiveness and Cultural Revitalization
Family reunions surfaced as vehicles through which cohesiveness could be restored and culture revitalized. They emerged as rituals capable of strengthening and stabilizing the African American family, and as tools for building strong and viable foundations for future generations.
African American family reunions are important rituals that have long contributed to the survival, health, and endurance of African American families, helping to maintain cultural heritage even in uncertain and turbulent times. African American family reunions continue to serve their earlier purposes, but also have new ones: these gatherings have now been identified as effective ways to communicate health information critical to African Americans. Although there is variation in how African Americans hold family reunions these days, some key elements remain constant.
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A noteworthy utility of family reunions has been their ability to give meaning and purpose to older men and women who emerge as custodians and transmitters of culture, while educating and empowering future generations of African Americans.
In the past, African American family reunions enabled families to resolve many of the conflicts of contemporary Western society. When we were in the company of elders, it felt less intimidating-and essential for family unity- to face some of the issues that have challenged and disrupted the African American family in modern times.
Many researchers have studied the family reunion as ritual. Myerhoff (1984) describes the connective and futuristic nature of rituals as they refresh yesterday’s memories, authorize today’s knowledge, and present expectations for tomorrow. Vargus (2002) describes African American family reunions as being constructed of networks of both biological and fictive relatives.
The climax of the reunion is the family meal. Within the context of sharing a meal, significant educational experiences occur. The final family action is worship. Many African American family reunions include attending one or more Sunday worship services: this provides a way to reconnect with spiritual traditions and invite the participation of a higher power in the health and welfare of the family. Typically, religious affiliation is not important.
Neville (1984) discusses how this day of business for elders may include caring for the graves of ancestors in describing a family reunion in the rural South. For urban African American elders, there is, however, a greater likelihood that this time is spent discussing the welfare of each family unit and strategizing to provide support and guidance. This day is also a time for the older members to check in with one another, unencumbered by the responsibilities of being elders.
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King and Wynne (2004) have discussed the importance of family integrity for older persons. Family integrity refers to processes through which men and women receive a sense of positive self-worth and value as they become elders. It develops through meaningful intergenerational communication in which the knowledge and wisdom of elders are welcomed and heeded, and results in validation and increased self-worth.
King and Wynne believe there are three components of family integrity: the transformation of relationships; the resolution of past conflicts; and the creation of meaning through shared stories, themes, and rituals.
The Role of Elders in Preserving Culture
Those “elder educators” who took center stage in the first formal reunion of my family are now dead and their roles have been passed on to me and others in my age group. As part of a new generation of elders, I am finding it extremely difficult to stand in the shoes of my parents and grandparents.
Holding the baton passed from my parents and grandparents, I long for the esteem they enjoyed from us, the quiet attention and reverence they earned simply because they survived the hazards of a racist society. The generation over which I now reign is a new creation.
A noteworthy utility of family reunions has been their ability to give meaning and purpose to older men and women who emerge as custodians and transmitters of culture, while educating and empowering future generations of African Americans. The need for rituals that activate and use the wisdom of elders has never been greater. These elders are charged with helping the young continue to exist in the face of new challenges.
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Hope for tomorrow and trust in the possibility of prosperous and productive futures hinge on events such as family reunions-happenings that engage those who have demonstrated how to survive amid and despite discrimination and institutional barriers. New elders in the African American community thrash about in an ocean of distorted truths.
We believed our ancestors when they told us hard work and education result in prosperity and justice. We believed our ancestors who said we should be willing to die for what we believed. Our children watched as we trusted and obeyed and were betrayed. This state of affairs means we must find ways to convince them to respect themselves and one another.
They must somehow come to believe- really believe-that violence against one another is violence against the future of the race. As the new elders, we have been handed the responsibility to renew hope in the possibilities of our people.
Cultural Assets and Strengths of Black Families
Optimism refers to “the penetrating belief held by most Black families that conditions will improve.” Current research indicates that-even in the face of challenging circumstances such as a lack of satisfaction with living arrangements or finances-a sense of optimism about the future remains a defining feature of Black families across varied situations, including different socioeconomic strata.
Optimism is also associated with positive mental and physical health outcomes for Black Americans. The mechanisms for understanding the ways in which optimism supports the health of Black Americans, however, are not easily understood. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, progress by Black people (albeit slow) in areas such as education and health strengthened their quality of life relative to previous generations.
Role flexibility refers to the idea that an individual’s responsibilities in a family adapt and change based on circumstances and/or need. For example, primary responsibilities related to household earnings, child care, house work, or other duties might shift between Black fathers, mothers, adolescents, or others (i.e., grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.) based on contextual factors such as the availability of work for one person or the other.
The findings also enhance our understanding of the ways in which certain cultural assets are used in Black families. Taken together, these insights highlight the need to strengthen our approach to research on Black families. As we progress in our efforts to identify and characterize the diversity, range of experiences, and cultural assets of Black families, we suggest the following considerations to ensure that our approach to this work (as well as efforts undertaken by other researchers, policymakers, and key stakeholders) is as useful as possible in supporting Black families.
This goal includes informing policies that move toward eliminating racism within institutions, systems, and organizations with which Black families interact. Data are critical to the research process. They can be used to inform the creation of policies and provide a way to monitor and measure the effectiveness of already existing policies, institutions, and organizations.
Data also facilitate an understanding of cultural assets across different family types. For example, examinations of Black extended family interactions have found that, compared to Black women, Black men interact with their families less frequently, seek less help from family or others to deal with personal challenges, and tend to primarily seek help from other men. In addition, Black Caribbean men do not adhere to the same pattern of help-seeking as American-born Black men.
These ethnic distinctions are worthy of further exploration and can be useful for understanding the unique and shared experiences of Black families, developing theory related to Black families, and putting into place effective policies and strategies to support them. Data sets do not adequately capture race and ethnicity.
As this brief highlights, Black families are diverse along many dimensions, and our understanding of their differences is hindered by a lack of data. For example, we know that Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean (including Latin America) are diversifying the Black American population. Increases in mixed-race marriages and people with mixed ancestry are also resulting in shifting boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. Documentation of these research issues, however, has only recently begun.
The Impact of Racial Trauma
Race-Based Trauma and Consequences for Children and YouthHistorical trauma refers to the complex and collective violations experienced over time and across generations by a group of people who share an identity, affiliation, or set of circumstances (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Mohatt et al., 2014). Historical traumas are a direct result of dehumanization, colonization, and oppression (Mohatt et al., 2014).
While not all descendants of an oppressed group will experience traumatic symptoms, some may experience poor overall physical and behavioral health, including low self-esteem, depression, self-destructive behavior, substance misuse and addiction, high rates of suicide, and/or cardiovascular disease (Gone et al., 2019). Family maladaptive coping and conflictual relational functioning may be exacerbated by living in a community with unaddressed grief and behavioral health needs.
Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), refers to “traumatic exposure to race-based experiences that are collectively characterized by racism, including acts of prejudice, discrimination, or violence against a subordinate racial group based on attitudes of superiority held by overt or covert actions carried out by individuals or society” (Williams et al., 2018). Individuals who experience persistent racist encounters are at risk of suffering from race-based traumatic stress injury (Williams et al., 2018).
There is accumulating evidence that racial trauma can result in adverse mental and physical health outcomes for people of color, including PTSD (Fani et al., 2021). However, RBTS is not considered a mental health disorder; instead, it is considered a mental injury that can occur as the result of living within a racist system and being exposed to race-based violence (Carter et al., 2017). Understanding the implications of having higher levels of exposure to traumatic events and persistent risks related to race-based violence and discrimination is critical for minoritized youth both because of direct consequences to their psychological and emotional development and the documented intergenerational transmission of parental psychopathology and impaired relational functioning resulting from parental PTSD.
Parental/caregiver mental health and corresponding parental skills represent the potential for increased risk factors for youth as well as protective buffers against societal traumatic racial stressors (Wieling, Trejo, et al., 2020; Wieling, Utržan, et al., 2020). From a developmental psychopathology perspective, the impact of traumatic events on the child’s adjustment are a complex and dynamic interplay between the child, the environment, parental adjustment, and the child’s history of risk and functioning, with direct and indirect pathways (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Pine et al., 2005; Pynoos et al., 1999).
These various forms of trauma exposure impact communities across ecological systems with significant and potentially lasting consequences for mental health and family functioning. Against the backdrop of historical trauma, racism, discrimination, and disparities, parents of racial-ethnic minority children endeavor to rear children with the hopes of opportunity, achievement, success, and wellness. Parenting programs attuned to the needs and circumstances of these families stand to address multiple needs of ethnic and racial minority groups. Among these needs are parenting children to cope with racism and discrimination, the socio-economic contexts of Black and Brown families, and attention to the role of cultural values that have been found to be adaptive for minoritized children (McLoyd et al., 2011; Murry et al., 2021; Schwartz et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2019).
The Importance of Racial Socialization
Research over the last decade calls on parents to transmit more messages designed to prepare their children for the racism and discrimination they are likely to face while fostering positive adaptation and resilience (Else-Quest and Morse, 2015). There are multiple dimensions of racial-ethnic socialization, including cultural socialization in which parents inculcate within children a sense of affirmation, cultural values, and belonging to their heritage found to be related to children’s prosocial development, across the developmental spectrum and reported as early as preschool (Hughes et al., 2006; Umaña-Taylor & Hill, 2020).
Research suggests that attention to at least cultural socialization and preparation for barriers is tantamount to addressing important socio-cultural needs of families that promote adaptive socio-emotional development, affecting their stress, health, and mental health (Hughes & Johnson, 2001; Hughes et al., 2006).
Racism continues to be a major source of stress for African Americans and can impair psychological functioning. Adolescents experiencing discrimination may engage in self-soothing, but risky behaviors, which leave them at risk for negative life trajectories. Black pride has been identified as a key factor in explaining the heterogeneity in responses to discrimination. Racial socialization, strategies parents use to promote Black pride and protect youth from discrimination, is an important focus of family-based prevention programs serving African American families.
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This study confirms that family-based prevention can support African American adolescent mental health in the context of discrimination. Racism continues to be a major source of stress for African Americans, especially in the rural South, where vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow laws produce an unequal distribution of economic, educational, and health resources (Murry et al., 2018). Discriminatory experiences can impair psychological functioning, producing hopelessness, and depression (Gaylord-Harden & Cunningham, 2009; Murry et al., 2021; Smith-Bynum et al., 2014; Yip et al., 2019).
Despite the negative effects of racism, it is important to recognize heterogeneity in youth outcomes. Racial pride has been identified as a key factor in explaining how some youth thrive despite exposure to discrimination (Caldwell et al., 2004; Scott, 2003; Sellers et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2003). African American parents’ use of racial socialization is a determining factor in nurturing these key elements of resilience (Berkel et al., 2009; Wang & Huguley, 2012).
Messages that balance a preparation for discrimination with an emphasis on the strengths of the African American community and ancestral heritage appear to be particularly beneficial.
Culturally Relevant Parenting Programs
Cultural adaptation has been defined as “the systematic modification of an evidence-based treatment (EBT) or intervention protocol to consider language, culture, and the context in such a way that it is compatible with the “client’s cultural patterns, meanings, and values’’ in ecologically valid ways (Bernal et al., 2009, p. 362).
There are several similar terms that have been used to describe attention to the beliefs, practices, values, and worldviews of the populations served including cultural sensitivity. In some of the earliest work on cultural sensitivity, Resnicow and colleagues (1999) distinguished between surface structure that attends to the representation of the group in the visual content and materials, including references to people, places, language, food, and clothing familiar to the target audience.
Deep structure attends to the cultural, social, and historical contexts that might affect motivation, receptivity, and adoption of prevention/intervention strategies (Resnicow et al., 1999). Reese and Vera (2007) state that cultural relevance refers to the extent to which interventions are consistent with the values, beliefs, and desired outcomes of a particular community.” We use the term culturally relevant to forward the notion that these intentional efforts to work with diverse populations.
Funeral Traditions and Cultural Preservation
Horses and carriages in front of funeral home of C.W. Black owned and operated funeral homes have a rich heritage and are as much cultural institutions as they are businesses. Prior to the Civil War, death was more of a family experience, as the body of the deceased was prepared and displayed in the family home.
The death services industry developed during the Civil War when the bodies of soldiers needed to be embalmed for transportation for burial, and this service moved from a trade to a professional business. Many within the industry view the business as a spiritual calling and are honored to have the privilege of counseling and helping people at a difficult time in their lives.
Funeral service workers organize and manage the details of a ceremony honoring a deceased person, and their duties include: offering counsel and comfort to families; providing information on funeral service options; and filing death certificates and other legal documents.
African American funeral directors maintain burial traditions as home-going or celebration of life ceremonies and honor a distinctive way of grieving. This often includes a level of theater and pageantry. The National Association of Negro Funeral Directors was established as a professional organization affiliated with the National Negro Business League, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900.
The funeral director and his family often lived upstairs in the funeral parlor, and without access to traditional credit markets, the business was a family affair. The family business at times branched out into real estate or transportation and has evolved into providing other services. Today, the majority of the funeral businesses remain small, local, and typically family-owned independent businesses.
Funeral parlors operate by reputation and word of mouth and are built around relationships. They do not generally advertise in a traditional way, as they thrive on client loyalty. Funeral directors are often leaders in their community, providing care and dignity to the deceased, and are often a base of operation within a neighborhood.
