The Weight of "Black Fatigue": Lightening the Load

About the "Learn. Connect. Build Community" Series
This series is designed to create an ongoing space where research and community knowledge meet—centering Black voices, lived experiences, and pathways toward healing, resilience, and collective care. Across events, our goal is to make research more accessible, foster dialogue, and build meaningful connections between researchers and the communities we serve.

About the Black Adult Resilience Study
The Black Adult Resilience Study is a multisite research study based in Seattle–Tacoma, WA, and Dallas–Fort Worth, TX, focused on understanding Black mental health. The study examines how personally and culturally relevant stressors interact with culturally grounded strengths, coping strategies, and sources of support. By highlighting not only risk factors but also resilience and protective processes, the study aims to inform more responsive, culturally grounded approaches to mental health research, practice, and policy.

This first event offers a guided, community-centered discussion on Black fatigue—what it is, where it comes from, and how it shapes the well-being of Black individuals. Black fatigue reflects the cumulative toll of systemic inequities, racial stress, and the ongoing demands of navigating both overt and subtle forms of discrimination and invalidation. Together, we will explore how these experiences show up in daily life, relationships, and health, while also making space for shared reflection, connection, and strategies for lightening that load—individually and collectively.

The discussion will be led by Nia Jones, a Research Coordinator in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychology, within the Acculturation, Diversity, and Psychopathology Team, and a UW alumna. Through her work on the Black Adult Resilience Study, she centers the lived experiences of Black communities and is currently developing a research framework to better define, measure, and contextualize Black fatigue.

This is a free event and open to all. If you would like to support our work, optional donations can be made via Venmo or Cash App. Contributions directly support the sustainability of our community- and culture-centered research. Specifically, they help fund community engagement efforts such as future public events, partnerships with local organizations, and the creation of accessible research materials. Funds also support fair compensation for research participants, whose time, knowledge, and lived experiences are essential to advancing this work. By contributing, attendees help build a more equitable and community-centered model of research.
Venmo: @uwadapt

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