BCKBONE is a zine for Black women and femmes that uses poetry, art, and storytelling to serve up tips, tools and tonics that empower and affirm. Using both personal and professional lessons learned and unlearned about identity, success, power, rage, healing, and love, BCKBONE, which launched February 2024, serves as a reminder to Black women that we are our own best things.

More than a zine, BCKBONE is a social experiment in radical Black feminism that uses love, determination and a DIY approach to resist marginalization, hate, and playing small. BCKBONE with its themes of resiliency, joy and freedom is a boost. Its affirmative messaging is a balm to Black women who are experiencing historic high rates of burnout, unemployment, and depression as a result of living, loving, and working (often on the frontlines) in racist and misogynist workplaces and homes. It’s a love note, healing overworked sisters who not only give their very best, but are the indispensable forces in spaces where we are often undervalued, tokenized, underappreciated, and undermined.

Hundreds of issues of BCKBONE have been distributed for free in NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and Montgomery at women’s conferences, art openings, hair salons, coffee shops, churches and zine fairs. In the radical tradition of zinemaking, readers can reproduce issues for friends and loved ones, giving them agency in creating their own network of joy, appreciation, and camaraderie.