Local author pleads for black nostalgia

In an age of racial reckoning, the country’s oppression against blacks is receiving renewed attention, and the experience of being black in America can seem almost universally bleak.

Flossmoor’s Badia Ahad-Legardy wants to complicate this point of view. In his new book “Afro-Nostalgia: Feeling Good in Contemporary Black Culture”, Ahad-Legardy offers a different perspective on black life, focusing particularly on the great pleasures and joys that often go unrecognized in the media.

Ahad-Legardy recognized that books describing the hardships and tragedy of black people are readily available, so she chose to see the history of African Americans in a new light: “What might a history of black joy look like?” ? ”

Legardy aims to reclaim nostalgia as an essential part of the black experience by drawing attention to the positive feelings African Americans used to survive and thrive in an unjust and unfair social structure.

She explores “the concept of historical black pleasure through a variety of art forms – literature, music, visual arts, performances and food to show how nostalgia is used in contemporary black culture as a way to reimagine the past and ‘explore the possibilities of a Better future. “

The non-fiction book can be seen as an opportunity to see different perspectives on black history, recognizing that the “transformative pain” of past tragedy can lead to present healing and happiness, voiced by artists from across the country. all walks of life.

One of his biggest lessons learned from research was that doctors and scientists believed that anyone of African descent cannot feel nostalgia.

She found it fascinating to hear about the progression of the nostalgia of being seen as a disease in the 17th century to a pleasurable emotion of “feeling good” in the 21st century.

“Nostalgia is more than a sort of escape; it allows one to face the present and imagine new possibilities for the future,” said Legardy.

She argues that the most crucial conclusion from her book is that dark memory is innovative and limitless.

“We have an incredible ability to cultivate happiness and joy, and this is often accomplished by drawing on nostalgic memories of the past,” she said.

She uses as examples some of her nostalgic childhood memories in the “wonderfully diverse and progressive community” of Hyde Park, located in southeast Chicago, an often ruthless oasis in the city.

Growing up, she remembers the freedom to explore all her neighborhood had to offer, playing hide and seek at Robie House, a landmark in Hyde Park, and creating some of her favorite moments around milkshakes. and fries at Medici on 57th Street.

A common theme that runs through all of the author and three-time college professor’s work is a marked interest in the emotional lives of others, whether they are enslaved people in the 19th century or students in her classes.

Ahad-Legardy credited her mother, Anna, with the inspiration to become a writer.

“She was a voracious reader, and I’m sure my love of literature started out wanting to emulate her. She gave me my first typewriter as a Christmas present when I was six, and I write ever since, “she said.

Ahad-Legardy is originally from Chicago and an associate professor at Loyola University in Chicago.