Welcome to Salt + Yams, bb.

Hi, I'm back.

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Howard and Ellen Greenberg.

In the almost four months since I published my last newsletter for Make It Make Sense, I’ve been mulling over why this space seemed off to me. I, of course, enjoy sharing health and wellness information with you. But it felt like I was creating content I thought y’all would like—as I joked here—instead of focusing on content that aligned more closely with my interests. It took me a minute to realize that y’all fuck with me because of my perspective and insight. So, without getting into the weeds about how mentally taxing it was to make another editorial shift, I’m announcing my newsletter’s final pivot. (Y’all, I promise we not pivoting again!)

Welcome to Salt + Yams, an archive dedicated to doing a few things:

• Recording Black health modalities dating back to enslavement and spanning through the diaspora.

• Investigating the many facets of health inequity.

• Uplifting interesting, underreported information about Black health history.

• Anything else I think is cool or relevant because I’m the captain.

Salt + Yams is my attempt to bridge the gap between what academics, and our elders, have long known and the public’s misunderstanding of Black health. The title is an ode to Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters and Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks—two books I spent a lot of time with this year.

Good health is your birthright. And I wanna talk about that.

I am not a historian or a researcher. I am simply a Black writer from North Carolina—raised by God-fearing Southern women steeped in ancestral traditions who measured foods with their hands, consumed red dirt, burned their shed hair, and who reveled in connecting with a power greater than them—with a deep commitment to the health and wellbeing of our communities.

I love you all. Thank you for riding with me for so long.

Ase,

Juju 🚀 ♥️