Family photo of The Chandlers. Young Pastor Alice Johnson, Aaron Johnson's mother, in the middle.
“Every resource that I'm benefitting from right now — the eleven acres I live on — was formed through unrested Black labor. My father, my mother, my grandfather — none had rest. Labor was relentless. Vacation was a dream."
— Aaron Johnson, Grief to Action & Holistic Resistance
What is Unrested Labor?
The United States was built on unrested labor. Unrested labor is well-known to African-heritage people and to People of the Global Majority — from the "continued form of state sanctioned punishment born from the ongoing legacy of slavery" [to] "the constant work hustle.” We finally have a phrase for the lineage of labor patterns borne from slavery that still affect us today.
Unrested labor is an acknowledgement of African-heritage folks, from slavery to present, who were and are forced to labor and often function in the way of no rest. Labor that is the foundation of this country that is often erased. Unrested labor acknowledges that People of the Global Majority often have to do extra labor to access the same amount of resource for those with privilege in this society. In acknowledging unrested labor we create possibilities for shifting this narrative and making rest a reality for all.
Aaron Johnson and his four siblings are the children of not one but two pastors. Senior Pastor Alice Johnson, Aaron's mother, taught his father, Senior Pastor Travis Johnson how to preach. In the lineage of his family and the Church of God, Aaron has evidence of unrested labor everywhere.
Aaron has built the context for unrested labor holding services for threshold moments of life and death for extended Black community. His father would travel miles on foot in response to the needs of his community. As such, his father couldn’t rest without falling asleep at the moment’s opportunity for rest. Aaron’s experience is not unique, because unrested labor is normalized in the Black population. It has functional, physiological consequences as well: higher BP and more beat-to-beat heartbeat variability in black men than in other racial groups and black women are the population most at risk for stroke and nearly 60% live with cardiovascular disease.
We are normalizing rest for Black bodies.
Unrested labor acknowledges how capitalism and oppression intersect to the detriment of Black bodies in particular, robbing them of rest and the expectation of rest.
Without the expectation that Black bodies deserve rest, they resort to attempting to access the rest afforded white spaces to various levels of success and not without sacrifice.
We are Black-led and working from and with Black-tended land to disrupt the lineage of unrested labor.
We are building physical + relational infrastructure for People of the Global Majority to access rest.
From our home base on eleven acres in the Mojave Desert of California, inherited through a lineage of unrested Black labor, we are building sanctuaries of earthen structures for sustainable living, healing, and most of all, rest.
How can you get involved?
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Give to the Campaign.
Our next building milestone will be funded by the Holding Earth & Grief: Campaign to Build Grief to Action. Learn more about how you can contribute.
For tax-deductible donations, reach out to our fiscal sponsor at ben@colorofsound.org.
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Attend our Programs.
We are not waiting until the sanctuary is fully built completed to offer life-shifting programming that centers People of the Global Majority (PGM). All of our programs are offered with equitable sliding scale tiers.
Donate to a program’s scholarship fund to increase access for People of the Global Majority. -
Join our Patreon.
Get a behind the scenes peek at the on-the-ground work that goes into building a grief sanctuary. We are so grateful to our Patreon supporters who sustain us through the ups and downs of the news cycle.