How Black Women* at Edinburgh Society is Reframing Activism

Tricia Hersey, Black American poet and activist, embodied rest and resistance in her 2017 solo performance Transfiguration. She publicly napped on a bed draped in cotton sourced from North Carolina while reading stories written by enslaved African Americans. Hersey invited the audience to recline beside her - encouraging rest as a radical, countercultural act of defiance.

When people imagine student activism, they often picture marches in protest and online movements that echo across campuses. Movements like #MustFall, which began at the University of Cape Town and spread to Oxford and Harvard, have shown the power of collective resistance. Yet, these moments often fade into university diversity statements that promise transformation but rarely deliver it. For many Black women students, institutional oppression seeps into everyday life in subtler, more exhausting ways.

Research shows that Black women remain the most likely to drop out of university, not because of a lack of ability, but because of the unrelenting pressures of navigating Predominantly White Institutions. Racial battle fatigue - coined to describe the exhaustion that comes from constant microaggressions - takes its toll. Student activism, though empowering, can also add another layer of emotional and physical labour. Studies show that minority student activists are more prone to burnout than their dominant peers at PWIs. They carry the weight of managing expectations, educating others, and caring for their communities. 

As Angela Davis said, “radical self-care” allows us to bring our whole selves into activism. Similarly, Audre Lorde (1988)wrote, “(self-care)… is self-preservation… an act of political warfare.” These ideas form the backbone of Black feminist thought - that rest, and self-preservation are not luxuries but radical acts of resistance - crucial in the face of systemic oppression. 

The Black Panther Party’s idea of revolutionary intercommunalism shaped our modern understanding of self-care. Their “survival programmes” provided clinical services, food distribution, and educational outreach - building systems of wellness in the face of state neglect. These programs recognised that in a world that consistently denies Black people this aid, we must actively create spaces to meet those needs. 

At the University of Edinburgh, the Black Women* at Edinburgh Society (BWE) continues this lineage of care as resistance. In an environment where community care for Black women is rare, BWE creates it deliberately. Our five pillars - sports and physical fitness, community building, health and wellbeing, creative activities, and career and professional development - permeate every facet of the university experience, reclaiming rest and belonging as political acts.

BWE’s self-care looks like collective journaling at our mindfulness circles, a running club where we move freely together, and creative workshops that let us build and imagine. It’s mentorship programs that transform isolation into empowerment. It’s shared spaces where we talk about health - how to care for our skin, our bodies, and our minds. In these moments, we aren’t merely surviving university; we are thriving within it.

To exist as a Black woman is to experience the world through a double consciousness, as W.E.B. Du Bois (1903) described - a constant awareness of how we see ourselves and how others perceive us. Gender and racialisation intertwine to create a unique kind of hyperawareness. Often, society’s perspective takes precedence, forcing us to be hyper-conscious of narratives imposed on us. This inflicted homogeneity stems from a history of underrepresentation - in politics, media, literature, and most presently, in PWIs. We risk reproducing this homogeneity due to the pressure to suppress our full identities to appease the masses. Yet, Black women are far from monolithic. Within BWE alone, our members come from diverse international backgrounds, faiths, and intersectional identities. Recognising that diversity allows us to build support systems that are not one-size-fits-all but instead holistic, responding to the full spectrum of who we are. 

Still, the stereotype of the “strong black woman” looms large. At first glance, it appears empowering - a celebration of resilience and fortitude. But beneath that façade lies a dangerous narrative that denies Black women softness, vulnerability, and rest. This stereotype teaches us to carry the world’s burdens silently, to make others comfortable even when it costs us our peace. It convinces institutions that we need less support and conditions us to believe asking for help is weakness. In reality, this over-identification with strength leads to burnout, anxiety, and self-silencing.

The perfectionism demanded by this narrative takes a profound toll. BWE is proof that we can achieve without being achievement-oriented. One of our core principles is celebrating each other’s wins. In a world where our achievements are expected, we pause to acknowledge the work it takes to get there. We support each other through the process and celebrate the outcome.

At BWE, our mentorship is foundational in shifting this narrative. Through our career and professional development workshops, we see members carry this support into mock interviews, study groups, and one-on-one prep sessions. We build confidence collectively. We understand that strength is not monolithic- it’s built, transferred, and fluid. It’s a process. It doesn’t look like biting your tongue or pushing through pain. It looks like asking for support without shame.

When our minds are at ease, we are at our most powerful. In moments of safety, joy, and connection, we produce our best work, our most creative ideas, and our strongest sense of self. The creation of BWE’s Nurtured Magazine, the first official publication in Scotland dedicated to archiving the voices and creativity of black women university students, stands as testament. Through community care and rest as resistance, we have reimagined what belonging can look like - turning isolation into community, exhaustion into healing, and invisibility into celebration.

This is the spirit behind “#BlackGirlMagic” and “#BlackBoyJoy” - proof that joy itself can be radical. Within a world that so often reduces blackness to pain and protest, our joy becomes a declaration of existence, a refusal to be confined by suffering.

This Black History Month, I invite you to reimagine activism. Let it look like rest. Let it feel like a community that holds you gently when the world feels heavy. To rest, to ask for help - this, too, is activism.

Author Biography:

Mokgethoa “Mokkie” Tebeila is a fourth-year LLB Law and Sociology student at the University of Edinburgh and the Co-President of the Black Women* at Edinburgh Society. She is a Black feminist activist who believes in making education accessible and empowering for all. Through her leadership, Mokkie works to create spaces where Black women can rest, thrive, achieve, and exist without performance. Her writing and advocacy reflect a deep commitment to community, storytelling, and reimagining what strength looks like.

References 

Bruce, D. D. (1992). W. E. B. Du Bois and the Idea of Double Consciousness. American Literature, 64(2), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.2307/2927837

Eromosele, A. (2020). There is No Self-Care without Community Care. Urge: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity [online]. Available at: https://urge.org/there-is-no-self-care-without-community-care/ [Accessed 14 October, 2025]

Linder, C., Quaye, S.J., Lange, A.C., Roberts, R.E., Lacy, M.C. and Okello, W.K. (2019). ” A student should have the privilege of just being a student": Student activism as labor. The Review of Higher Education, 42(5), pp.37-62.

Martinerie, C. (2021). ‘The #MustFall movements and traditions of national liberation in South Africa: Political continuities and ruptures in theory and practice’, Journal of Civil Society, 17(3–4), pp. 277–296. doi: 10.1080/17448689.2021.2003138 

Monier, M., (2023). “Rest as resistance:” Black cyberfeminism, collective healing and liberation on@ TheNapMinistry. Communication, Culture & Critique, 16(3), pp.119-125.

Robertson, R. (2023). A critical race theory analysis of transnational student activism, social media counter-stories, and the hegemonic logics of diversity work in higher education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(5), pp.900-917.

West, L.M., Donovan, R.A. and Daniel, A.R., (2016). The price of strength: Black college women’s perspectives on the strong Black woman stereotype. Women & therapy, 39(3-4), pp.390-412.

Winkle-Wagner, R., Kelly, B.T., Luedke, C.L. and Reavis, T.B. (2019). Authentically me: Examining expectations that are placed upon Black women in college. American Educational Research Journal, 56(2), pp.407-443.