"My Life's Light": Black College Women's Religious and Spiritual Responses to Racial Discrimination

Spiritual concepts, such as forgiveness, hope, and joy, have long-standing roles in shaping Black individuals' responses to racial discrimination in the United States. However, within higher education scholarship, very few studies explore the multifaceted ways that college-attending Black women understand and cultivate these concepts during emerging adulthood, a developmental period characterized by identity exploration and preparation for adulthood roles. We used a constructivist and inductive content analysis approach to examine semistructured interview data from religiously and ethnically diverse 21 Black women (18-25 years old) attending predominantly White liberal arts colleges in the United States. We identified three broad themes and subthemes: (1) going inward (i.e., relying on internal and self-oriented processes), (2) going outward (i.e., relying on social support or external resources), and (3) going upward (i.e., relying on a higher power). Results indicate that Black women use a range of religious and spiritual practices to access hope, forgiveness, or joy in the context of racial discrimination. Findings may be of interest to student affairs professionals, researchers, and mental health clinicians who serve, study, and work alongside Black undergraduate women.