It was a photograph of Rosa Parks that started it all, one many people weren’t accustomed to seeing. Most photos depicted the activist galvanizing the battle for racial equality as she donned bespoke dresses and crisply tailored top coats, but this particular picture was different.
The image revealed a less formal side of Parks, wearing a modest black leotard and tights. This time, she wasn’t lifting a nation in the rightful defiance of racism; instead, she was lifting her own torso up and backward from her abdomen while lying on a multi-striped, Mexican-inspired sarape blanket.
It was a rarely-seen snapshot of The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement doing yoga.
The extraordinary photo of Parks assuming a Dhanurasana position (or the Bow Pose) was captured at an event in March of 1973, but it only began circulating after it was featured at the Library of Congress exhibit “Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words” in December 2019. The unfamiliar image also became the genesis for a compelling book, Black Women’s Yoga History: Memoirs of Inner Peace, written by Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans, that chronicles the power of mindful self-care in African-American women’s health.
Recently published in paperback, the book highlights documented accounts of how Black American matriarchs have long turned to the therapeutic benefits of yoga and other intentional practices since the nineteenth century. Inspired by Ancient Egyptian principles, they used yoga as a tool for healing and presence of mind to cope with an exceedingly violent and turbulent world.
“This work traces how Black women learned to breathe, despite conditions that were painfully breathtaking,” Evans, a professor and director of the Institute for Women’s Studies at Georgia State University tells Yoga Journal. “Specifically, I investigate the inner peace practices that elder Black women have used to try to bring their lives into balance.”
While doing research for the book, Evans uncovered long-standing evidence of African-American women engaging in deeply-rooted meditation, postures and other forms of mindful practice dating as far back as slavery. She also took a deep-dive into historical documents, archives and contemporary literature to search for instances of Black women in yoga and other conscious practices.
Evans came across many unexpected enthusiasts, very much like Rosa Parks.
With an interest in Buddhism, Parks added Buddhist meditation to her prayers and learned yoga while in her 50’s, alongside her nieces and nephews in 1965. She went on to study and practice yoga for thirty years, also teaching the mind-body exercise in her community.
When the fervor of the Civil Rights Movement ushered in the “Black is Beautiful” mantra and the Black Power Movement in the 1970s, it also paved the way for an enormous emphasis on Black health by way of self-care and community engagement. During that time, many renowned African-Americans like Jana Long (the founder of the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance), political activist Angela Davis (yoga and mindfulness helped her through the horrific ordeal of that 16-month incarceration) and entertainment icon Eartha Kitt had all adopted a yogic way of life.
A devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (founded in 1816 in Philadelphia by Bishop Richard Allen, a former slave), Parks was open-minded about incorporating yoga into the base of her religious beliefs and her life as an activist. Her younger relatives have said she even developed a home practice, and documents reveal that she included yoga in the youth development programs she designed at the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development.
“The exercises help clear her mind, the stretches keep her body limber,” one of her younger relatives has said. “Inner peace and clarity have always been important to her.”
Evans’ discovery of Parks and other prominent Black women practicing yoga was a moment of truth in her research for Black Women’s Yoga History. She uncovered many historical and defining moments that underscore the importance of seeing Black women engage in thoughtful practices of self-management and personal care. In the book, she talks about Rita Marley’s meditation, Tina Turner’s chanting rituals and many other lesser-known, yet pivotal yoga practitioners and healthcare advocates who are major examples of “health role-modeling,” she says – whether they classified it as yoga or not.
Evans also names author Alice Walker as one of the more vocal supporters of yoga’s healing powers. Walker herself has written extensively about why yoga and meditation are essential.
“The practice of yoga is a holy endeavor and the teaching of it to our people, a very high calling,” Walker notes. “Laying on my yoga mat…I concentrate with my breath and silently thank the Creator for allowing it to flow into and out of me. It is such a joy to know now to do this.”
Walker continues. “From the final savasana of the yoga mat it is easy to see how like orchids we have been, and still are. Beautiful, rare, common, fragile, strong, exotic, plain. Gorgeous….”
Black Women’s Yoga History: Memoirs of Inner Peace by Stephanie Y. Evans is available at all major retailers where books are sold, including the following Black-owned bookstores:
