The Black History Month Reception served as both a celebration and a call to action, encouraging residents to attend local Black History Month events, visit historical sites, and support local black-owned businesses. Westchester County remains committed to honoring Black history throughout the year and ensuring its lessons continue to guide the County’s progress.
City & State’s annual Black Trailblazers list, which is published at the start of Black History Month, puts a spotlight on key leaders who are breaking through in an array of fields, from government and politics to business, social services, higher education, and organized labor. This year’s cohort includes the first Black woman to become mayor of Syracuse, the state’s first Black woman to be elected sheriff, and dozens more exceptional individuals who are blazing a trail for others to follow.
To kick off Black History Month following his historic win, Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins was named to City and State New York’s 2026 Black Trailblazers list, Monday, among so many leaders who continue to shape the future of our communities and our state.
“During Black History Month, we are reminded of the sacrifices made and the legacy carried forward by those who broke barriers before us. I carry that legacy with pride and purpose as we continue to build a future where everyone can see themselves reflected in positions of leadership. Congratulations to each and every leader honored this year. I am proud to stand with you in this important work,” Ce Jenkins shared.
Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins has been selected as one of City & State New York’s 2026 Black Trailblazers, an annual list honoring Black leaders across the state whose work is shaping New York’s political, civic, and cultural landscape.
Jenkins, who made history as Westchester’s first Black County Executive, was recognized among a distinguished group of New Yorkers who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to public service, community leadership, and progress.
A longtime public servant with decades of experience in county government, Jenkins has focused on issues such as housing affordability, safer communities, and inclusive economic development. The Black Trailblazers list highlights his continued leadership during Black History Month and beyond.
City & State wrote, “Ken Jenkins made history last year as the first Black county executive in Westchester County. Jenkins, who succeeded now-Rep. George Latimer, in the post and won a full term last fall, has had a long career in Westchester government – previously serving as deputy county executive and chair of the Westchester County Board of Legislators – while focusing on reducing crime, improving roadways, and promoting housing affordability. Apart from his career in public service, Jenkins has also served as the president of the NAACP’s Yonkers branch and was the chair of the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission.”
The City & State NY Black Trailblazers list celebrates leaders making significant impacts in their fields and communities throughout New York State.
“Being named to this list is an honor and a reminder of the work we continue to do to build a more just and equitable future for all residents,” Jenkins said in a post marking the recognition.
Other Black Trailblazers from the 914 selected included DaMia Harris-Madden and Dr. Valerie Mason Cunningham
DaMia Harris-Madden- Commissioner, State Office of Children and Family Services
It’s trained into us through meetings that move too fast, through jokes you’re expected to laugh at, through pauses that tell you exactly how far you’re allowed to go. Silence is what you pick up when you notice who gets rewarded for being agreeable and who gets labeled “difficult” for being honest.
And after a while, silence becomes muscle memory.
But here’s the thing: eventually, it gets heavy.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that you start shifting in your seat.
Enough that your breath catches before you speak.
Enough that you realize holding it in is taking more energy than saying it out loud.
That’s when silence starts to crack.
Not because fear disappears, but because carrying it alone stops feeling sustainable.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about systems. About how they show up in the body. About how they teach us to expect the bare minimum and call it professionalism. About how symbolism replaces labor, safety gets unevenly distributed, and advocacy gets negotiated down by payroll.
And quietly, without a press release, people have been responding.
Not with slogans.
With stories.
People saying, “I thought it was just me.”
People admitting how long they’ve been editing themselves, not because they didn’t care, but because the cost felt too high.
And let’s be clear: that’s not weakness.
That’s conditioning.
Courage doesn’t always look like a mic and a viral clip. Sometimes courage looks like not shrinking when the room expects you to. Sometimes it looks like asking the question you already know will make things awkward. Sometimes it looks like deciding you’re done translating harm into language that makes other people comfortable.
That kind of courage doesn’t trend.
It doesn’t come with applause or a neat narrative.
It shows up quietly.
In the educator who finally says, “This policy doesn’t sit right with me.”
In the nonprofit worker who stops calling inequity “miscommunication.”
In the artist who creates honestly even when the algorithm punishes truth.
In the elected official who chooses clarity over political safety.
This courage isn’t reckless.
It’s relational.
It understands something very real: none of us are meant to do this alone.
Because silence thrives in isolation. It depends on you thinking you’re the only one who sees it, the only one who feels it, the only one who’s uncomfortable. But the moment shared truth enters the room, the room changes.
People stop blaming themselves.
They start recognizing patterns.
They realize their hesitation wasn’t a personal flaw; it was a learned response.
And once you see that?
You can’t unsee it.
That’s where choice returns.
Do I keep shrinking to survive?
Or do I start finding my people, quietly, intentionally, so survival doesn’t require silence?
Courage in this season isn’t asking for grand gestures. It’s asking for honesty. For discernment. For community that doesn’t punish growth.
It’s noticing who grows when you speak and who only tolerates you when you don’t. It’s choosing circles that expand your capacity instead of managing your presence.
And yes, that choice is personal.
But it’s also collective.
Because when enough people stop pretending they don’t see the same thing, systems lose their cover. Silence, once cracked, doesn’t go back to being airtight.
It lets light in.
It lets breath in.
It lets truth move again.
This isn’t the end of the conversation.
It’s the moment you realize you were never alone in it.
And that?
That’s where things start to shift.
Community Reminder
This column was created with one purpose: to empower our community.
And when we say community, we mean come together and unify.
We mean sharing information, naming patterns, and building understanding across neighborhoods, so no one is left carrying these realities alone.
This is not about blame.
It’s about clarity.
Because shared truth is a shared lens. Sometimes we move through life so close to our own experiences that we don’t see the full picture. This column offers one vantage point, not the only one, but a necessary one, to widen how we understand what’s happening around us.
Clarity brings us together.
Unity strengthens our voice.
And a unified community, grounded in shared truth, is better positioned to create change that is meaningful, practical, and lasting.
When most Americans think about slavery, the story is often told as one of endurance, suffering, and pain. But Black History Month calls on us to remember another powerful truth: slaves in America did not accept their bondage quietly. From colonial New York to the swamps of South Carolina, slaves fought back— even if it meant death at the end of the fight.
Slave rebellions were among the most direct and dangerous forms of resistance in American history. Though relatively rare due to the extreme violence of the system, these uprisings shook the foundations of slavery and exposed the constant fear that haunted slaveholding society.
One of the earliest revolts occurred right here in New York in 1712, when a group of slaves set fire to a building and attacked white colonists who came to investigate. The rebellion was brutally crushed, and more than 20 Black folks were executed. Yet the message was clear: even in the heart of colonial cities, slavery was never uncontested.
In 1739, the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina became the largest uprising in the British colonies. Enslaved Africans, many of them from the Kingdom of Kongo, marched toward Spanish Florida chanting for freedom. Though defeated, the rebellion terrified slaveholders and led to even harsher slave codes.
The 19th century brought even more organized resistance. In 1800, Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved Blacksmith in Virginia, planned a massive revolt to seize Richmond. The plot was betrayed before it could begin, and Gabriel was executed. In 1811, the German Coast Uprising in Louisiana involved hundreds of enslaved people marching toward New Orleans—the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.
Perhaps the most famous revolt came in 1831, led by Nat Turner. Turner and his followers killed dozens of white slaveholders in Virginia before being captured. The aftermath was wild: over 100 Black people were killed in retaliation, and southern states tightened laws against Black literacy, movement, and worship.
Not all rebellions happened on land. In 1841, enslaved Africans aboard the American ship Creole seized control and sailed to the Bahamas, where British authorities freed them. It remains one of the most successful slave revolts in U.S. history.
These rebellions mattered not because they always succeeded, but because they revealed a hidden truth: slavery survived only through constant violence, surveillance, and fear. Enslaved people were not passive victims—they were political actors who dreamed, planned, and fought for freedom.
Most resistance did not look like open revolt. It took quieter forms: escaping through the Underground Railroad, slowing work, breaking tools, learning to read in secret, and building strong Black communities. Revolts were rare because the consequences were often death, torture, or the destruction of entire families.
Yet every rebellion sent shockwaves through the nation. They inspired abolitionists, terrified slaveholders, and reminded America that freedom was not granted—it was demanded.
This Black History Month, slave rebellions should be remembered not as footnotes, but as acts of revolutionary courage. They stand as proof that from the very beginning, Black folks, our African ancestors, resisted injustice and helped force this country to confront its deepest contradiction.
Every February, Westchester County wraps itself in the language of progress. We celebrate “firsts,” applaud diversity panels, and repost sanitized snapshots of Black achievement. But Black History Month in 2026— a century after the first formal observance—demands more than applause. It demands honesty.
February is designated as Black History Month, a period annually set aside to commemorate and contemplate the profound and enduring achievements of Black individuals in the United States and beyond. In 2026, it holds particular significance as it commemorates the centennial of the observance that commenced in 1926 as Negro History Week and subsequently evolved into a month-long celebration honoring the history, culture, resilience, and leadership of Black communities.
Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950), a distinguished historian and author, instituted “Negro History Week” in February 1926 to advance the examination of African American accomplishments. He selected the second week of February to align with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It was extended to Black History Month 50 years later in 1976.
In the attempt to whitewash our history, we cannot forget our past locally. We must also discuss the uncelebrated Black history of Westchester County—the stories that built the county but rarely make the banners, textbooks, or February programs. This is the history beneath the history. What’s missing from the story: Westchester is often framed as an abolition-leaning, “North = free” region. That’s a myth.
The myth that slavery was a Southern problem collapses the moment we look honestly at Westchester’s past. Enslaved Africans lived and labored across the county, particularly on large estates owned by elite families. Black men, women, and children were forced to build the very infrastructure—roads, farms, docks, and homes—that generated generational wealth still visible today.
Westchester’s Black history is not just a story of triumph. It is also a story of enslavement, erasure, displacement, and resistance—much of it still missing from the county’s official memory. Truth is that slavery was legal and widespread in Westchester well into the 1800s. Powerful families like the Philipses, Van Cortlandts, and the Jay family neighbors enslaved Africans. Enslaved Black people built roads, farms, docks, and estates that became the backbone of county wealth. Most historic homes name the owners, not the enslaved people who made those homes possible.
Why does it matter? New York didn’t fully end slavery until 1827—meaning enslaved Black people lived in Westchester decades after the Revolution. Children born enslaved after 1799 were still bound until adulthood. Many were sold south before emancipation to avoid “losing property.” This history is rarely connected to Westchester’s current racial wealth gap.
Westchester also carries a long history of Black community destruction dressed up as “urban renewal.” Thriving neighborhoods were labeled blighted, then cleared for highways, municipal buildings, and private development. What’s not discussed in the classroom every February is the fact that Black communities were erased by Urban Renewal.
In New Rochelle, the Lincoln Park community—home to Black professionals, homeowners, and businesses—was systematically dismantled. This thriving Black middle-class community was bulldozed for development. In White Plains, neighborhoods like The Hollow met a similar fate – Black residents were displaced under “slum clearance.” In Yonkers and Mount Vernon, displacement followed the same script: Black land removed, Black wealth erased, white development rewarded, and parts of Yonkers and Mount vernon were cleared for highways and civic projects.
These weren’t accidents or unfortunate side effects of progress as advertised. They were policy choices.
Let’s not forget the uncelebrated labor history or the Black Railroad & Domestic Workers Who Built Suburbia. The suburban dream Westchester is famous for did not run itself. Black men worked the railroads as Pullman porters, station agents, track and maintenance workers, connecting Westchester to New York City’s economic engine. Black women worked as domestic laborers—cooks, caregivers, cleaners—sustaining households that accumulated wealth they themselves were denied. Westchester’s “quiet suburbs” ran on Black labor that never translated into Black ownership or generational wealth for those they worked for. The county benefited from Black labor without extending Black opportunity.
The Hard truth is Segregation didn’t end—it adapted. Even after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation in Westchester did not disappear. It reorganized itself through housing policy, zoning, and school district boundaries. Federal courts eventually intervened—most notably in Yonkers—confirming what Black residents had long known: segregation here was intentional. Yet today, Westchester remains one of the most racially segregated counties in the nation, a reality rarely addressed during Black History Month programming.
Yonkers faced federal court orders for segregation. Mount Vernon and New Rochelle used housing patterns to maintain racial separation. But not speaking about it does not erase the fact that it happened.
What else is often overlooked is that Black residents organized long before representation existed. Voting power was suppressed through districting and economic pressure. Many “first Black” officials came shockingly late for a supposedly liberal county. While we have celebrations, focusing on the firsts, we leave out the decades of resistance before them in our classrooms and celebrations. The story of Black history in Westchester is not just about who finally got elected—it’s about how long Black communities were shut out.
There is a lot of Cultural History That Never Got a Plaque. Like how Jazz musicians rehearsed in basements and churches, Hip-hop culture thrived in Mount Vernon and Yonkers before it was profitable. and how Black churches doubled as political, cultural, and economic hubs. Again the culture is celebrated—but the conditions that shaped it are often ignored.
So why does this matter in 2026 – Black History Month isn’t just about celebration—it’s about truth-telling. In 2026, Black History Month cannot remain a comfort ritual. In Westchester, it must become a reckoning. What does that mean or look like? That means marking lost communities, not only celebrating leaders, naming enslavement, not just abolition, acknowledging displacement, not just diversity, and teaching policy harm, not just personal success. If the county wants an honest Black History Month, it must honor communities lost, not just leaders crowned.
Black History Month serves as a retrospective examination of past hardships and accomplishments while simultaneously urging individuals and communities to persist in their efforts to learn, honor, and elevate Black voices and history throughout the whole year.
Black history did not happen somewhere else. It happened here—on this land, in these towns, under policies still shaping outcomes today.
Until Westchester tells the whole story, Black History Month remains incomplete.
Sources & Further Reading
Primary & Scholarly Sources
New York State Archives – Records on slavery, gradual emancipation, and manumission
New-York Historical Society – Slavery in New York collections
Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site – archival materials on enslaved labor
Van Cortlandt Manor Historic Site – documentation of enslavement in the Hudson Valley
Urban Renewal & Housing
Lincoln Park Conservancy – community preservation research
Federal court records on Yonkers desegregation (U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y.)
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law
Education & Segregation
NAACP Legal Defense Fund – housing and school segregation cases
New York State Education Department demographic archives
Labor & Migration
Pullman Porter histories (A. Philip Randolph Institute archives)
Library of Congress – African American railroad labor collections
Local Oral History & Journalism
Black Westchester reporting and archives
Westchester County African American Heritage Trail materials
Carter G. Woodson, the founder of what began as Negro History Week and later became Black History Month, did not intend for it to be a festival of pride detached from results. He created it because Black history was being erased, distorted, and misused—and because he believed that misunderstanding history would guarantee repeated failure in the present.
Yet today, Black History Month has primarily become a season of applause rather than accountability. We celebrate names, moments, and symbols, but rarely stop to reflect on what Woodson was actually trying to teach us about power, economics, and miseducation. In honoring the calendar, we have ignored the warning.
Woodson understood that the greatest threat to Black progress was not ignorance alone, but education that trained people to think in ways that benefited others at their own expense. His central argument was not emotional. It was structural. Control how people think, and their actions—and outcomes—will follow predictably.
In The Mis-Education of the Negro, Woodson warned that when people are taught to see themselves as permanent victims or perpetual dependents, they will willingly accept inferior outcomes without coercion. This was not merely a psychological observation. It was an economic one. A population conditioned to distrust its own capacity will never build durable institutions.
Woodson observed that Black Americans were increasingly being trained to pursue recognition rather than ownership, protest rather than construction, and ideology rather than economic competence. He did not oppose the protest, but he insisted that the protest without a constructive program was ineffective. Without building something tangible, protest becomes performance rather than leverage.
He was equally critical of the two dominant ideological paths offered to Black America in his time: liberal paternalism and revolutionary socialism. Liberalism promised uplift through reform, philanthropy, and administration—always managed by others. Communism promised justice after revolution, always delayed to some future moment. Woodson rejected both because neither required Black people to own, control, or govern their own economic destiny. In both cases, power remained external.
Perhaps Woodson’s most uncomfortable warning—especially for modern audiences—was his critique of educated Black leadership. He observed that formal education often produced people fluent in theory but detached from production. Many educated Black Americans, he noted, were trained to distrust Black businesses, to assume Black enterprise was inferior, and to see white institutions as inherently more competent. Education, instead of producing builders, produced skeptics.
Woodson went further. He argued that highly educated Black elites often undermined Black business not through malice, but through indoctrination. They repeated what they had been taught in elite institutions: that Black people could not succeed in business, that capitalism offered no path forward, and that ownership was futile. These conclusions were drawn not from experience, but from ideology. The result was predictable—Black businesses were starved of capital, loyalty, and support.
By contrast, Woodson pointed out that the so-called uneducated Black businessman was already doing what the educated class insisted could not be done. He was building businesses, acquiring property, and creating employment under hostile conditions, without waiting for political permission or ideological consensus. The irony Woodson exposed was devastating: those dismissed as “uneducated” were often closer to independence than those with the most credentials.
This analysis led directly to Woodson’s warning about socialism and communism. He acknowledged why these ideas appealed to educated Black Americans who had been taught that capitalism was closed to them. But he rejected the logic of waiting for a total system overhaul. His argument was unsentimental and straightforward: if Black people waited for ideological revolutions to improve their condition, they would be economically exhausted long before liberation arrived.
Measured against today’s political landscape, Woodson’s warnings feel less like history and more like a diagnosis. Black America is more educated than ever, more politically mobilized than ever, and more visible than ever. Yet Black wealth remains disproportionately low. Black business ownership remains fragile. Black communities remain dependent on external capital and external decision-making. Political loyalty has produced symbolism and representation, but not leverage.
This is not accidental. It is the outcome Woodson predicted. Political systems reward loyalty, not results. Ideological movements reward emotion, not production. Education divorced from ownership produces critics instead of builders. Under those incentives, stagnation is not a failure—it is the expected result.
Woodson made one thing unmistakably clear: no group has ever been elevated by ignoring its own needs, aspirations, and capacity for self-determination. That truth has not changed.
Carter G. Woodson did not create Black History Month so we could celebrate progress we have not secured. He made it so we would pause, reflect, and correct course. If Black History Month has become a celebration without reflection, then we are honoring the tradition—but abandoning the lesson.
Black History Month often frames the Negro spiritual as a monument of faith. The melodies of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” or “Go Down Moses” carry the weight of history. But there is a deeper story hidden within those notes, a story of biological brilliance wrapped inside the sanctity. Long before modern medicine understood the Polyvagal Theory or neuroplasticity, our ancestors were already using the Negro spiritual as a sophisticated biotechnology, a biologically active cultural practice that changed the body from the inside out. They were intuitively using sound to rewire their brains and regulate their hearts under a system designed to destroy both. From today’s lens, the Negro spiritual functioned like a medical intervention disguised as a song, one that created resilience, the physiological ability of the body to bounce back from the unthinkable.
Figure 1: Collective singing in the Hush Harbors combined breath, rhythm, and shared sound in ways that supported nervous-system regulation under extreme stress. Credit: Concept illustration for Black Westchester
To understand how these songs saved lives, it helps to look at what scientists call Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, or “RSA.” While the word “arrhythmia” often sounds like a heart problem, in this case, it describes the rhythm of resilience. In its simplest terms, RSA is the healthy dance between breath and heart. When a person breathes in, the heart rate speeds up slightly to get oxygen to the brain, and when a person breathes out, it slows down to let the body rest. The more in sync these two are, the more resilient the body is against stress. In the medical world, a heart that beats like a rigid machine can signify a heart at risk. A heart that can dance with the breath is typically a heart that can survive.
In the fields of the South, and wherever enslaved people gathered in secret, they carved out spaces known as “Hush Harbors.” These were woods, gullies, or swamps hidden from the world. Practices varied by region, denomination, and community, but across the South, enslaved Africans carved out similar hidden spaces of sonic refuge, drawing on West and Central African traditions of call-and-response, polyrhythm, and communal healing that had crossed the Atlantic with them. When a leader started a spiritual with a long, drawn-out exhale (“I got a home in-a dat rock, don’t you see…”), they were, in essence, training their cardiovascular systems.
By controlling the breath through long musical phrases, they forced their heart rates to follow a healthy, predictable pattern. This kind of breathing pattern is now known to be associated with healthier blood pressure regulation and less wear on the cardiovascular system over time. They were tuning their bodies like instruments, ensuring they would not break under the pressure of forced labor.
What happens inside the body when thirty people moan together in a cramped, hidden clearing?
That deep, wordless moan anchors the Black musical tradition. From a neurobiological perspective, the moan is a natural activator of the vagus nerve, the body’s internal control center. It acts like a brake. When the stress response is racing like a car with a stuck gas pedal, a state of hyper-vigilance, the vagus nerve can slow the heart down and start the healing process. The low-frequency vibrations of a moan engage vagal pathways through prolonged exhalation, laryngeal vibration, and respiratory control, helping the body shift out of constant fight-or-flight.
When our ancestors moaned, they were, in effect, self-administering a biological reset.
They were signaling their brains to slow the chronic release of cortisol, a stress hormone that, when elevated over time, contributes to inflammation and cellular aging. With that burden eased, the body could begin to repair, and the ribcage itself became a resonance chamber of healing.
And then there was the silence between the phrases.
That pause, that collective inhale, was doing something too. Under constant trauma, the human brain can get stuck in a dark loop of negative thoughts. This happens in a part of the brain called the “Default Mode Network,” or DMN. Think of it as the internal narrator of the brain, the voice in the head when everything is quiet. In a state of enslavement, that narrator could be filled with the terror of the past and the uncertainty of the future. The Negro spiritual allowed our ancestors to break the loop. When a congregation sang together, they entered a state of focused attention that likely helped quiet the DMN. By calming that internal narrator through rhythmic, repetitive songs, they gave their brains a mental vacation. This protected their cognitive health, allowing them to remain sharp, strategic, and mentally free even while physically bound.
But that internal protection could only work if the body felt safe enough to receive it. This is where the Hush Harbors mattered most. Neurobiologically, psychological safety is a prerequisite for the vagus nerve to relax. A person cannot regulate the nervous system if the threat is standing right in front of them. In these hidden spaces, our ancestors created zones where their biology could finally shift out of defense mode. This was one of the earliest forms of community-generated, trauma-informed care in the Americas. Every time they gathered and sang, they were not only finding reassurance in each other but also physically repairing the damage done to their bodies during the workday.
What happens when those thirty people start to move?
The Ring Shout was a collective repair in motion. Synchronized movement and sound is one of the oldest mammalian regulation strategies; what our ancestors did was apply that universal capacity with extraordinary ingenuity under inhuman conditions. A communal circle of call and response movement that powerfully engaged the brain’s reward and bonding systems, likely involving dopamine and oxytocin. Dopamine drives the brain’s reward and motivation circuits. It is the chemical that makes a person want to keep going. By singing about the Promised Land, our ancestors were actively engaging their reward circuits, keeping the hope for freedom biologically alive.
The physical closeness and synchronized movement of the Ring Shout are also associated with oxytocin release, a hormone that strengthens social bonds and trust between people. Oxytocin also dampens inflammatory pathways and supports the body’s rest-and-repair systems. When people sing and move in rhythm together, their heartbeats synchronize. Researchers call this physiological synchronization, and it means that a group of people singing together begins to function, biologically, as a single connected system.
What enslaved communities built in the Hush Harbors is now recognized in clinical settings as music therapy, a discipline with over seventy years of peer-reviewed research confirming that structured musical engagement regulates autonomic function, reduces cortisol, and supports emotional processing. The ancestors were already doing the work.
You can read about RSA and vagal tone all day, but put on “Deep River,” and the body will show you what the science means. Here are five foundational Negro Spirituals that illustrate different aspects of these principles. Each one activates the body differently, and while precise neuroscience labels cannot be assigned to individual songs with certainty, each one engages the systems described above. These songs illustrate principles, not prescriptions; their power lives in communal context, not isolated consumption:
Figure 2: How Negro Spirituals Regulate the Body. Each spiritual engages different neurobiological pathways. These songs illustrate principles, not prescriptions; their power lives in communal context, not isolated consumption.
Public health researcher Dr. Arline Geronimus calls the toll of chronic, systemic stress on Black bodies “Weathering,” a process where inequality itself accelerates aging at the cellular level. The Weathering our ancestors fought has not disappeared; it has changed shape. Today, many Black Americans still face stressors that over-activate the amygdala, the brain’s threat-detection center, and strain the heart. The message is often to “just be strong,” but strength without regulation leads to burnout and disease. Our ancestors did not wait for permission to heal; they took agency over their own biology. Moving forward means reclaiming these bioacoustics of resistance and resilience: the vocalization of the moan to lower blood pressure, and collective rhythm to stay anchored when everything says break.
It would be easy to read this history and conclude that our ancestors were simply built to endure. But nobody is built for that. What happened in those clearings was ingenuity under duress, people finding ways to keep their bodies alive because no one else was going to do it for them. What they created was extraordinary, but it should never be used to justify the systems that made such survival necessary. Resilience is a practice, not a personality trait. And it was forced by circumstance, not chosen by nature.
Nestled within the stories of remarkable resilience and pioneering achievement that will be celebrated during Black History Month, the Negro spiritual quietly remains one of the most overlooked. What our ancestors built in those hidden clearings meets the modern definition of trauma-informed care in almost every respect: they created safety, they led as peers, they restored agency through participation, and they rooted every practice in shared cultural memory. They did not have the language of neuroscience, but through repetition and necessity, they arrived at practices whose mechanisms modern research would later confirm. They turned their voices into a pharmacy and their ribcages into resonance chambers of survival.
This resilience was a hard-won victory of the Black intellect, and it must never be used to justify the systemic burdens placed upon Black bodies then or now. The ancestors already knew. Nobody had to teach them. The practice worked, and it is still working. Every time someone hums a spiritual in a church pew, or a barber’s chair, or a car on the west side highway, the vagus nerve responds the same way it did two hundred years ago. The songs remember, even when we forget.
Derek H. Suite, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist and Founder and CEO of Full Circle Health. He works at the intersection of performance, recovery, and resilience across professional sport and leadership, drawing on a decade of teaching Clinical Psychopharmacology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Sleep as Performance Medicine and host of The SuiteSpot, a daily podcast exploring science, spirituality, and human performance. He is a guest contributor to Black Westchester Magazine
Teens Under Construction, Inc., The Home of Hip Hop Therapy,
On the Sunday, February 1, 2026, episode of People Before Politics Radio, AJ, Damon, and Larnez sat down with Yocasta “Yogi” Jimenez, LMSW (President & founder) and Shamar Watson (Vice-President/COO) of Teens Under Construction, Inc., (TUC) to discuss youth mentorship, culturally responsive therapy, and real pathways for supporting at-risk youth.
Ms. Yogi is also known as The Hip-Hop Therapist. She is the President and Founder of Teens Under Construction, Inc. (TUC). She believes in incorporating Hip-Hop Culture into TUC to unite our community through cultural communication, which helps provide youth engagement and educational growth.
Shamar Watson, LMSW, recognizes the significance of providing youth with opportunities to empower themselves through self-expression. For Shamar, Hip-Hop is not just music; it’s a culture and a powerful conduit that connects young people to the importance of addressing their mental health.
TUC is a mentoring and counseling organization, serving at-risk youth ages 15-24. Ms. Yogi has a passion for the work she does. She loves working with young people and educating people about effective ways to engage youth to provide them with the ability to obtain success.
For more information on Teens Under Construction, Inc., The Home of Hip Hop Therapy, visit their website and follow TUC on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Yelp, and YouTube and follow Yogi The Hip Hop Therapist on Instagram
Black Westchester presents the People Before Politics Radio Show with Damon K. Jones, AJ Woodson & Larnez Kinsey. Tonight, we’re bringing you a powerful and necessary conversation with two important…
This Sunday, 6–8 PM, tune in to the People Before Politics Show on Black Westchester Magazine. First half (6–7 PM): We sit down with Yocasta “Yogi” Jimenez, LMSW (President & founder) and Shamar Watson (Vice-President/COO) of Teens Under Construction, Inc., to discuss youth mentorship, culturally responsive therapy, and real pathways for supporting at-risk youth.
Second half (7–8 PM): We’re joined by Pastor Conrad Tillard for a critical conversation on faith and activism—asking the hard question: Is protesting inside a church appropriate or does it cross a moral line? Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, and X.
Join Damon K. Jones, AJ Woodson, and Larnez Kinsey tonight as we bring you not just news, but context, accountability, and community-centered analysis you can’t get anywhere else.
LIVE from 6 PM to 8 PM on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, powered by Black Westchester Magazine.
“I was not involved in the death of Kimberly [Kim] Porter… I was not involved in the murder of Christopher Wallace [Biggie Smalls].” — Sworn statement in the lawsuit, denying allegations cited or implied in the NBC/Peacock documentary.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is still fighting in his $100 million defamation lawsuit in federal court against NBCUniversal, its streaming service Peacock TV, and the production company Ample Entertainment, alleging the documentary Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy falsely tied him to violent crimes, including murder and other wrongdoing, claiming they spread false allegations and ruined his reputation.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 12, 2025, in U.S. District Court in New York, challenges the nearly 90-minute documentary that premiered on Peacock a month earlier in January. Combs’s attorneys say the film advances “outrageous” claims without evidence and inflicts reputational harm.
The complaint states that the documentary:
“shamelessly advances conspiracy theories that lack any foundation in reality, repeatedly insinuating that Mr. Combs is a serial killer because it cannot be a ‘coincidence’ that multiple people in Mr. Combs’ orbit have died.”
Combs vehemently denies any involvement in the deaths of people referenced or implied in the film. The complaint includes denials of suggestions the project made about high-profile deaths, including those of his former partner, Kim Porter, and rapper Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.).
“I was not involved in the death of Kimberly [Kim] Porter… I was not involved in the murder of Christopher Wallace [Biggie Smalls],” says the statement from Diddy, which Black Westchester has obtained.
Diddy further denied involvement in the deaths of Heavy D and Andre Harrell, or participation in an attempt to kill Al B. Sure. In the lawsuit, his attorneys argue that those insinuations are both false and defamatory:
“Defendants have published and broadcast false statements about Mr. Combs with actual knowledge that they are false or with reckless disregard as to their truth or falsity.”
The complaint further alleges the documentary’s narrative extends beyond irresponsible speculation to defamatory, outright claims:
“Indeed, the entire premise of the Documentary assumes that Mr. Combs has committed numerous heinous crimes including serial murder and sex trafficking… and attempts to crudely psychologize him.”
The suit contends that the documentary’s narrative caused severe reputational and economic harm to Combs, and the plaintiff is seeking $100 million in damages.
The case is Sean “Diddy” Combs v. NBCUniversal Media, LLC, et al., filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (see full complaint below).
NBCUniversal has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which the courts will rule on in the near future.
As of late 2025 and early 2026, while the lawsuit against NBCUniversal remains active, Combs has also pursued a separate $100 million defamation action against NewsNation, witness Courtney Burgess, and attorney Ariel Mitchell for similar “fabricated” claims. Recent developments in January 2026 involve other parties, such as a former sex worker suing Netflix and 50 Cent for their own documentary, The Reckoning, which Combs’ team has also criticized but not yet formally sued over.
If you live in the Hudson Valley and your electric bill feels abusive, that is not bad luck, weather, or personal consumption. It is the predictable outcome of policy decisions made with full knowledge of who would pay the price.
Across Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Putnam, and Ulster counties, the average homeowner is now paying roughly 30 to 45 percent more for electricity than just a few years ago, even after accounting for changes in regular usage. In many households—especially those relying on electric heat or gas during winter peaks—the increase is even higher.
This did not happen because Hudson Valley residents suddenly became wasteful. It happened because the cost structure changed.
The Hudson Valley sits at the center of New York’s energy contradiction.
This region lost the Indian Point nuclear power plant—a facility that once supplied a significant share of downstate electricity with zero carbon emissions, stable pricing, and round-the-clock reliability. It was located where demand was highest: near Westchester, Rockland, and New York City.
When Indian Point was closed, it was not replaced by an equivalent, constant, low-cost power source in the Hudson Valley. Instead, electricity is now primarily generated by price-volatile natural gas plants and imported from farther away. That shift added transmission costs, congestion fees, and delivery surcharges that now appear on monthly bills regardless of how much electricity a household uses.
This is why many residents have seen bills rise 30 percent or more since 2020, even when usage stayed flat or declined.
The fastest-growing portion of the bill is not the supply. It is a delivery.
In much of the Hudson Valley, delivery charges now account for 50 to 65 percent of a residential electric bill. These charges cover grid congestion, long-delayed infrastructure upgrades, climate compliance mandates, and guaranteed utility returns approved by regulators. Consumers cannot opt out, shop around, or negotiate.
This structure quietly turns energy policy into a regressive tax.
The damage does not stop with homeowners.
Small businesses are being squeezed just as hard—often harder.
Across the Hudson Valley, mom-and-pop shops, restaurants, salons, bodegas, and service businesses are reporting electric bills that have more than doubled in a short period. A small shop that once paid around $400 a month is now seeing bills closer to $900, without expanding hours, equipment, or square footage.
For a small business, that difference is not a nuisance. It is payroll. It is inventory. It is whether the doors stay open.
Unlike large corporations, small businesses cannot hedge energy costs or negotiate special contracts. Electricity is a fixed operating expense. When it jumps by 100 percent, owners are forced to raise prices, cut staff, reduce hours, or shut down entirely. This is one reason Hudson Valley downtowns feel more fragile—more vacancies, fewer independent shops, and higher prices passed on to consumers.
These exact costs also feed directly into rising rents.
Landlords factor higher electricity and gas expenses into rent calculations, whether utilities are included or not. In multifamily buildings, common-area electric costs, heating systems, and compliance upgrades are passed through as higher rents or new fees. When operating costs rise 30 to 40 percent, landlords do not absorb the loss—they raise rents to survive.
Energy policy becomes housing policy.
Contradictory state choices further box in the Hudson Valley. New York restricts new natural gas pipeline capacity while increasing reliance on gas-fired plants to replace lost nuclear power. The result is artificial scarcity. During cold months, prices spike not because fuel is unavailable, but because policy prevents efficient delivery.
Utilities such as Con Edison, Central Hudson, and NYSEG operate as regulated monopolies. When the state mandates system changes, utilities recover costs through rate cases approved by the Public Service Commission. The risk is socialized. The bill arrives monthly at kitchen tables and small business counters.
None of this was unforeseeable. Energy analysts and grid operators warned that closing Indian Point without firm replacement capacity would raise prices and strain reliability. Those warnings were inconvenient, so they were ignored.
The outcome was not an accident. It was arithmetic.
And this is precisely why more and more people are leaving New York—not out of ideology, but necessity. When policy decisions consistently raise the cost of basic survival, working people respond rationally. Families can tolerate high taxes or high housing costs for a time, but when energy, rent, and operating expenses all rise together, the math collapses. Small business owners cannot stay open on slogans, and working households cannot budget around unpredictable utility bills.
The Hudson Valley is not losing residents because people stopped caring about community or climate. It is losing them because poor policy decisions have made everyday life unaffordable for the very people who work, build, and keep the region running.
High electric bills in the Hudson Valley were not an accident. They were the result of choices. And until outcomes, rather than intentions, judge those choices, the exodus will continue.
Electricity is not a luxury. And a policy that treats it as one deserves to be challenged.
