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The Quiet Casualties of the Movement for Black Lives

Ashley Yates, a Black Lives Matter organizer and activist, has shared candid depictions on social media of the toll her work has taken.Credit...Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times

I have spent plenty of time over the past few years talking with Black Lives Matter activists about their work. The conversations are usually about things like systems and policies, strategies for winning change and the path forward. In these moments, just as when we see them taking to the streets in protest, activists come off as strong and resolute, unflappable and resilient.

But there is a quieter reality of activism: the mental and emotional hardship of the work, and the resulting stress and depression that sometimes make it difficult to even get out of bed.

Though this is not often talked about in the open, it is evident to anyone paying close attention. Over the past two years at least five prominent activists have died. Two of them were suicides. One was from a heart attack at age 27. The other two were homicides, which speaks to the pressures of activism, too — the work they do often antagonizes the police, and so many are wary of turning to the state for protection.

We decided to explore this topic after Muhiyidin Moye, an activist in Charleston, was fatally shot in New Orleans last month. What led activists to die young and how were those deaths affecting people in the movement?

I knew right away that reporting out this story would be challenging. Activists are often wary of sharing with mainstream news outlets, feeling that they have been burned in the past and their messages have been twisted. One activist even expressed concern that my article would sow divisions within the movement. And talking about mental health is not easy or comfortable for many people to begin with.

One of the first people to whom I reached out was Ashley Yates. I had developed a relationship with her since her days as an activist in Ferguson, Mo., after the police killing of Michael Brown. Ms. Yates didn’t hold back with me: She has already been open on social media about her struggles within the movement and had a very public falling out with its leaders.

Ms. Yates had also written about how she was affected by the hospitalization of Erica Garner, the 27-year-old daughter of Eric Garner. Ms. Garner had a heart attack last year and later died; while she was in a coma, Ms. Yates shared an image on Instagram of a text message exchange in which Ms. Yates encouraged Ms. Garner to not be bothered by people talking negatively about her on social media.

“I have to make clear just how invisible some of the most heinous violence we experience is,” Ms. Yates wrote in the Instagram post in December. “How we are often left alone on the front lines grown cold because media and figureheads move on to the next hot story.”

I asked Ms. Yates, who moved to Oakland a couple of years back to work as an activist full time, if she ever had the urge to just say forget it, and take her college degree and go into a traditional profession. Of course she did, she told me, especially when you see someone dropping dead at 27 of a heart attack.

“It’s absolutely scary,” said Ms. Yates, 32. “It’s enough to make you want to quit.”

But more than just reflecting on the difficulties of activism and the trauma that comes with it, Ms. Yates ventured into another area that I had not thought about: self-care.

As it turns out, taking care of yourself is a big issue in the present movement, unlike in times past. There are trained “healers” in communities who run workshops and do private counseling for activists. Ms. Yates started seeing a therapist about a year ago. She also talked about the things that seem small but can make a big difference for her: going to the ocean, putting her toes in sand, remembering to eat, taking time to talk with her friends about things that have nothing to do with activism. Some of these might seem obvious, but for those immersed in the work, that’s not always the case.

As one reader commented on the story, young activists should temper their expectations for immediate results “and put their personal health first in order to reduce their toxic levels of stress.”

Because, he added, “stress can kill; emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Black Stress Matters. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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