The Black experience in the united states in the western world is based on historical and systemic racism from slavery, colonization, and Jim crow AND one of reSELience from building social movements, cooperative economic structures, and culture that prioritizes and heals Black people.

Black SEL is about acknowledging the ways that SEL competencies have been present in black communities long before the designation or study of social-emotional learning. Black SEL uplifts and cultivates decades of community and ancestral wisdom to transform black communities and schools to provide dignity and equity inside these institutions.