Anastasia Ebel, owner of the BABYBANGZ hair salon in Mid-City, New Orleans, reflects on her continuing desire to cultivate spaces of intentional reflection for both herself and her local New Orleans community.

In Death Is Our Business, filmmaker Jacqueline Olive shines a light on how the coronavirus has rocked the Black community’s cherished cultural practices in New Orleans — a city that is no stranger to loss and grief. While revealing the racial disparities of the virus’s toll, the documentary film goes inside two of the oldest Black-owned funeral homes in the city, offering an intimate look at rituals that are specific to how many Black Americans funeralize their loved ones and the troubling ways that the pandemic has impacted them.

Just weeks before the pandemic hit, Jeannine Cook opened Harriett's Bookshop in Philadelphia as a way to celebrate Black women authors, activists, and artists. Since then, her work has taken on a larger role in the fight for space and sovereignty.