From writer, award-winning placemaker and urbanist, Jay Pitter, this is a profoundly beautiful and essential text that asserts, with intimacy and insight, our collective responsibility to protect and enhance each other’s public joy.

When Jay Pitter was growing up in a poorly designed government housing neighbourhood, her mom inundated her with public space etiquette rules in hopes of helping her to transcend the city’s oppressive margins. Pitter’s mother believed that for Black people, especially poor Black people like them, survival and dignity hinged on presenting well in public. Despite a deep regard for her mother’s efforts, decades later, Pitter has emerged as an award-winning placemaker and urban planning lecturer advocating for equitable public spaces where people aren’t made to present well or repress healthy self-expression.

Authored during a global pandemic and sparked in large part by the public execution of George Floyd, Black Public Joy is an intimate narrative contextualizing these and other events while evoking Pitter’s personal experiences navigating public spaces. She locates polarizing media headlines and neighbourhood debates in actual public spaces expertly guiding readers on a revelatory collective journey. The book explores themes such as the contemporary significance of the “slave” action block, invisible urban policies that continue to restrict Black peoples’ freedom, and the trauma of constantly assessing racial safety risks. She reminds us too of Black people’s sacred place-based wisdom and vibrant pageantry. In a book both urgent and necessary, Pitter deepens our understanding of Black public joy as a democratic right and summons everyone to become each others’ safe(r), sacred space.