For Andrea Walls, joy begins with a warm cup of coffee served in her favorite mug at the start of the day.
And it doesn’t stop there. At the start of 2020 — a year marked by the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapoli s and a nationwide pandemic that struck the Black population at disproportionate rate s — Walls, 60, decided to go out each day and photograph everyday moments of Black joy around Philadelphia.
“I felt like there needs to be equal time for the other true story, that there’s this incredible capacity that Black people have to endure the most incredible trauma and yet respond with creativity, with joy,” said Walls, founder of the Museum of Black Joy.
Walls said though it’s not hard for her to find these moments in communities across the country, there are still obstacles that make feeling joy a challenge.
“The barriers are still what they have always been: the dehumanizing realities of the systems that have been set in place since the beginning of the nation,” she said.