Rosa Parks. Halle Berry. Tina Turner. These three Black women and many others share a common holistic approach to finding peace: practicing yoga. Holistic wellness in the Black community dates back to before Africans were transported to America through the slave trade, and one approach, yoga, has strengthened Black women for centuries. Yoga is a spiritual discipline with Hindu roots that aims to gain harmony in the body and mind through physical movements and breathing techniques. Tina Turner turned to the practice and the famous Buddhism chant "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" to find peace after an abusive relationship with ex-husband, Ike Turner. In 2020, Halle Berry wrote in Women's Health magazine that she uses yoga to let go of negative energy."Though I've been working with my energy for years, this work feels especially relevant and important right now. The current state of our country – and the world – makes it very easy to feel afraid, lost and depressed," she penned. Many know the story of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger during the beginning of the civil rights movement, but few knew that she practiced yoga in her later years. A photo of her practicing Dhanurasana, or Bow Pose in March 1973, began to circulate on social media after photos were put on display at the Library of Congress exhibit "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words" in December 2019. Stephanie Evans, a professor at Georgia State University and author of "Black Women's Yoga History: Memoirs of Inner Peace," learned of the previously unpublished photos in the library's digital archive, according to the Association of Black Women Historians. She learned from family narratives and papers there that Parks learned yoga in 1965 with her nieces and nephews and practiced for three decades."I recognized it is a poignant illustration of how Black women’s healing traditions are historical, spiritual, creative and political," Evans said according to to the association's website. Evans told USA TODAY via email that although the discovery of Rosa Parks practicing yoga was a turning point in her research journey, understanding the historical movement of the practice across decades was more than about one person."I was equally surprised and impressed by the broad number of references I found in Black mainstream culture," she wrote. "Sources like digital archives of Howard University, Library of Congress, Emory University and Ebony Magazine showed me how common yoga was for Black people in the 1970s, in addition to the broader U. S. culture."Jana Long, founder of Black Yoga Teachers Alliance, began practicing yoga in 1972."Yoga was doing me before I was doing it, meaning I think yoga in the physical approach is such an authentic way of moving," Long told USA TODAY. "We move in those ways when we are younger, but then life gets in the way.
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