‘Honor my youth’: A new mural celebrates Black girlhood in West Philly
"They expect you to carry yourself as an adult would, when I am still a child, I am still a teenager like everybody else," said Jordyn Battle, who is featured in the mural.
Jordyn Battle loved drawing with chalk, and playing double Dutch and hopscotch. But, as soon as her age became double digits, the world around her began trying to take her girlhood away.
As a Black girl, she felt that where other children were afforded space to show their emotions, she was expected to carry herself with the emotional maturity of a woman or risk being perceived as angry or overemotional.
“They expect you to carry yourself as an adult would, when I am still a child, I am still a teenager like everybody else, same teenage emotions, same teenage hormones as everyone else,” said Battle, who just turned 18.
A June study done by CHOP’s PolicyLab and nonprofit We REIGN, exploring the impact of adultification on the health and well-being of Black girls and young women showed that for many Black girls the premature death of girlhood is not a feeling but a reality.
“When Black girls walk the streets, when they are trying to go to school, go to the grocery stores; instead of having their community support surrounding them, they are catcalled, hypersexualized, even criminalized in the very places that they are supposed to be safe,” said Daniela Brissett, a faculty scholar at PolicyLab.
To honor and celebrate their girlhoods, a mural featuring Battle’s smiling face at age 11 staring at the reflection of a joyful infant version of herself, surrounded by flowers, was unveiled on Saturday at 41st and Wallace Streets.
For two years, muralist shanina dionna worked with more than 20 girls from We REIGN to capture the strength, innocence, and tenderness of childhood. To her, the mural is a way to tell the community: “Honor my youth, honor my tender space while I am growing in my formative years, honor that part of me so I can grow and thrive.”
For We REIGN founder Tawanna Jones, the idea is to acknowledge the issue while not letting the joy of being a Black girl be overshadowed, so that when the girls look at the mural, they remember that they have a community that is still taking care of them as they continue to grow.
“Jordyn, the little girl in the image, in the mirror, she is still a child,” Jones said. “They need to know, ‘Even tho I am growing in my body, in my mind, I am still a child and the community is still taking care of me.’”
Battle was picked by her peers at We REIGN to represent their girlhood. It’s a gesture she feels is the perfect farewell to Philadelphia as she heads to college to major in biology.
“My sisters in We REIGN are the reason why I got through times, so when I see [the mural] I think of them, of us being girls together,” Battle said.
That feeling warms Glenda Stewart’s heart. The 66-year-old grew up at a time when she didn’t feel free to enjoy her girlhood. So, when Jones approached her to ask if they could paint a mural on the side wall of her home, she jumped on board.
“Sisterhood is part of girlhood,” Stewart said. “It was hard growing up as a Black girl. I had to struggle by myself, then I had children, and it was just us three against the world. It’s good to have sisters to support you in life.”