Rest is Resistance: How to Earn Hope This Black History Month

Black folks resting is a revolutionary act.

When we show up in spaces of protest, resistance, or even just speaking out, we risk our bodies, our mental health, our legal status, and much more. And once those abuses occur? They distract from the very issue we're trying to combat in the first place.

That's why rest isn't passive. Rest is strategic.

When we allow others the space to speak up, we build our collective resistance and skills. We strengthen the movement by distributing the labor. We protect those who have already paid high costs for their advocacy. We create sustainability in our justice work.

But here's what rest doesn't mean: doing nothing.

The Hope Crisis We're Facing

This Black History Month, many of us are feeling afraid and hopeless. And that's because we haven't actually earned our hope.

When we try to create spaces of love, diversity, inclusion, and belonging and meet resistance, we burn out. We give up. We feel defeated. Because our hope wasn't built on a foundation that could sustain us through the inevitable backlash, the institutional barriers, the slow pace of change.

Hope that isn't earned—hope that's just wishful thinking or passive optimism—collapses under pressure. It can't hold up when the work gets hard. And it easily transforms into hopelessness.

Whether you're a Black person engaging in the revolutionary act of rest this month, or a person doing abolitionist work, or anyone committed to creating spaces of genuine belonging—we need to earn our hope.

What Does It Mean to Earn Hope?

Psychologist Charles Snyder's research on hope theory tells us that hope has two essential components:

Willpower: The motivation and energy to pursue goals Waypower: The ability to generate pathways to reach those goals

Earned hope combines both. It's not just wanting things to be better. It's having concrete strategies and evidence that change is possible because you've built the skills and witnessed your own capacity to create it.

Earned hope is:

• Practiced, not wished for

• Strategic, not sentimental

• Evidenced, not assumed

• Collective, not individual

• Sustainable, not sporadic

This Black History Month, I'm inviting us all to reflect on our individual role in creating and maintaining spaces of love, diversity, inclusion, and belonging—and to do the work of earning our hope.

Five Actions to Earn Hope

ACTION 1: NAME YOUR ROLE

What is YOUR specific role in creating spaces of love and belonging right now?

Not what you wish you could do. Not what you used to do. Not what someone else is doing. What can YOU do this week, this month, with the resources and capacity you actually have?

Write it down. One sentence. Make it concrete.

Examples:

• "I will speak up when bias happens in my workplace meetings."

• "I will rest and allow my community members to lead this month."

• "I will donate to three Black-led organizations doing abolitionist work."

• "I will have difficult conversations with family members about racial justice."

• "I will show up to city council meetings about police accountability."

Your role might be rest. That counts. That's revolutionary.

If you've been on the front lines, if you've spoken up and faced consequences, if you've risked your body and mental health in spaces of resistance—rest is not retreat. Rest is how you survive to fight another day. Rest is how you model sustainable activism for others. Rest is how you redistribute the labor of liberation.

ACTION 2: BUILD YOUR RESISTANCE INVENTORY

Hope requires evidence. You need proof that you're capable of doing hard things, surviving costs, and continuing anyway.

List three times you've shown up for justice and survived the cost:

• When did you speak up and face consequences but kept going?

• When did you rest when activism culture told you not to?

• When did you choose your mental health over performative action?

• When did you hold a boundary that protected your capacity for the long fight?

This isn't nostalgia. This is data. You've navigated resistance before. You've made strategic choices before. You've survived burnout, backlash, or harm before and you're still here.

Document that truth. Write it down. Keep it somewhere you can return to when you doubt yourself.

Your resistance inventory is evidence that you have both willpower and waypower. That's the foundation of earned hope.

ACTION 3: IDENTIFY ONE BARRIER AND ONE PATHWAY

Hope isn't about ignoring obstacles. Hope is about identifying pathways around them.

What's ONE barrier stopping you from showing up in your role right now?

• Fear of consequences?

• Exhaustion from previous efforts?

• Lack of community support?

• Unclear on what action to take?

• Grief from recent losses?

• Financial constraints?

• Health limitations?

Name it specifically. You can't strategize around a vague sense of "it's too hard."

Now: What's ONE pathway around it?

• Fear → Find an accountability partner who will show up with you

• Exhaustion → Schedule rest first, then plan limited action

• Lack of support → Join an existing group doing this work

• Unclear action → Research three concrete options and choose one

• Grief → Therapy, ritual, or processing time before re-engaging

• Financial constraints → Identify no-cost actions (speaking up, amplifying, learning)

• Health limitations → Adapt your role to match your capacity

Hope is the combination of willpower and waypower. You need both. This exercise builds your waypower—your ability to generate pathways even when barriers exist.

ACTION 4: PRACTICE COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE

Individual hope is fragile. Collective hope is resilient.

Who else is doing this work?

• Name them

• Thank them

• Amplify them

• Share resources with them

• Ask what they need

• Offer what you can provide

You don't have to do this alone. In fact, you can't. That's not how collective resistance works. That's not how movements sustain themselves.

When Black folks rest and allow others to speak up, we're not abandoning the work—we're distributing it. We're building collective capacity. We're training others. We're ensuring that when one person needs to step back, the movement doesn't collapse.

That's strategic. That's sustainable. That's how we win.

Find your people. Build with them. Rest with them. Resist with them.

ACTION 5: REST WITH INTENTION

If your role this month is rest, practice it like the resistance strategy it is.

Rest with full awareness of what you're doing:

• You're allowing others to build skills and leadership

• You're protecting your body and mind for the long fight

• You're modeling sustainable activism for a culture that glorifies burnout

• You're refusing to participate in the martyr narrative that harms our movements

• You're demonstrating that your worth isn't tied to your productivity

• You're living proof that survival is revolution

Intentional rest is not:

• Giving up

• Checking out

• Abandoning your values

• Betraying the movement

Intentional rest is:

• Strategic

• Healing

• Protective

• Necessary

• Revolutionary

Rest without guilt. Rest with purpose. Rest as an act of resistance against systems that profit from your exhaustion.

From Hopelessness to Earned Hope

The truth is this: Hope that isn't earned collapses under pressure.

But hope that's built through intentional action, collective care, strategic rest, documented evidence, and identified pathways? That hope sustains. That hope defeats what tries to defeat us.

This Black History Month, let's stop waiting for hope to find us and start earning it through practice.

Let's name our roles with clarity. Let's document our resistance with pride. Let's identify pathways with strategy. Let's build collectively with intention. Let's rest with revolutionary purpose.

Because when we earn our hope, we don't just survive the current moment—we build the foundation for lasting transformation.

What's your role this month? How are you earning your hope?