Black Brown + Breathing (BBB) was founded in August of 2020 by Taylor Mason (co-founder, director) and DuShaun Branch (co-founder). Both yoga teachers, restorative justice practitioners, and healing artists, we wanted to provide a space for Chicago’s Black, Latinx, and indigenous communities to process and combat the collective trauma and isolation we faced amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, state violence against Black people, and ongoing tensions between Black and Latinx folks within the city.
BBB held our first public activation in Douglass Park on Chicago’s west side. These socially-distanced, healing-centered activations took place at sites of resistance, protest, and collective trauma throughout Chicago. Through these spaces, we came together to reclaim them as our own, to share in one another’s healing, and to spread awareness of ongoing injustices.
Since then, we have held space with and for over 300 people throughout Chicago, hosted five mutual aid distributions, and partnered with over a dozen healing arts practitioners, organizers, and organizations throughout the city.
In 2021, we collaborated with Chicagoland schools to hold yoga, meditation, and dialogue spaces for students, families, and educators of color transitioning back to in-person learning amidst the pandemic.
In 2023, as public spaces re-opened, BBB entered a year-long chrysalis phase. As a team of two juggling full-time jobs, grad school, parenthood, and more, this chrysalis phase offered us an opportunity to rest, reflect, and take note of remaining needs and desires for intercultural healing among Chicagoland communities of color.
Throughout this time, we continued to facilitate healing justice circles for teens, emphasizing political education, trauma-informed movement and meditation, and creative play.
Today, we are focusing on our youth-focused programming, as well as supporting community initiatives to incorporate healing- and human-centered approaches into their organizational cultures. In 2024, we will experiment with re-introducing public activations in partnership with fellow facilitators throughout the city.
