When we talk about justice, we often focus on resistance, sacrifice, and struggle. These are real and unavoidable parts of the story, but they are not the whole of it. There is another current that runs through liberation work, one that sustains movements and nourishes people when the fight becomes heavy. That current is joy. Too often, joy is dismissed as frivolous or secondary, as if serious work for justice must be joyless. Yet joy is not a distraction from justice. Joy is one of its most powerful engines. It fuels endurance, sparks creativity, and binds communities together in ways that make survival and flourishing possible.

At Princeton University, scholars in the Department of African American Studies are expanding how we think about joy. They show that joy is not just a fleeting emotion but a political and philosophical force. Their words invite us to see joy as viral, aspirational, liberatory, resilient, and communal. These insights call us to rethink how we teach, how we organize, and how we imagine futures that are not yet here.

Ruha Benjamin: Joy as Viral Justice

Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American Studies and author of Viral Justice, asks us to consider what it would mean if justice and joy spread like a virus. Instead of seeing the viral as only negative, she flips the metaphor and imagines it as a model for transformation. Joy can travel in small, barely visible ways from one person to another. This vision resonates with what happens in classrooms when dialogue suddenly takes fire. One student asks a question that opens a door. Another takes courage to share a personal story. The room, once quiet, begins to buzz with curiosity. That spark does not stay contained. It moves outward, carried into conversations with families, into social networks, into the ways students approach the world.

Joy becomes viral justice when it multiplies and ripples beyond what we can see. It reminds us that our work is never only about what happens in the moment. We are planting seeds that will spread across communities, neighborhoods, and generations. Joy in this sense is collective, generative, and revolutionary. In a time when cynicism and despair spread as easily as rumors, Benjamin’s invitation to see joy itself as contagious offers a radically hopeful way forward.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr.: Joy as Aspiration

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, reminds us that joy is often aspirational. He has reflected that joy, in our current climate of political despair and social turmoil, is something we want but may not always feel. At first this sounds sobering, but in fact it offers a challenge. To call joy aspirational is to place it on the horizon. It is something that calls us forward, fragile but powerful, even when reality does not match the dream.

For educators, this is crucial. We cannot wait for conditions to be perfect before we cultivate joy. We create joy precisely when it is missing, through care, imagination, and curiosity. I have seen this in classrooms where students envisioned futures not yet realized. They may not have every material resource, and they may face structural barriers, but when they work together with creativity, joy takes root. Students describe joy as the moment they realize education can be more than memorization, that it can open up possibilities for the future.

Glaude’s framing reminds us that joy is a direction as much as an emotion. It is the horizon we pursue in our teaching and our activism. By holding joy as aspiration, we resist the temptation to give in to despair. Instead, we commit to building conditions where joy can become reality, not only for a few but for entire communities.

Tera W. Hunter: Joy as Freedom

Historian Tera W. Hunter reminds us of a powerful phrase spoken by a newly emancipated Black woman in the aftermath of emancipation: to “’joy freedom.” For this woman, joy meant the ability to live fully, to exercise autonomy, to shape life on her own terms. That statement reminds us that joy is not trivial. Joy is political. It is inseparable from the ability to act freely in a world that once denied that possibility.

I recently experienced this spirit while working to design curriculum for Detroit students rooted in Stanford’s design thinking approach. When students realize they had the tools to innovate and create, joy flashes in their faces. They are not bound by the low expectations society often places on them. They are free to think, to imagine, to shape their futures.

Hunter’s reminder that joy is linked to freedom expands our understanding of what liberation looks like in practice. It is not only about tearing down barriers but also about living fully. Joy as freedom is the thrill of choosing, of creating, of existing without apology. It is the right to enjoy life itself, something once denied to millions and still unevenly distributed today.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad: Joy in Spite of Pain

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Professor of History, adds another dimension. He teaches that joy is not the absence of pain, but happiness in spite of it. This insight is crucial in education. To teach African American history, to study the realities of systemic racism, is to confront deep pain. Yet even in those contexts, joy remains possible. Joy is resilience. It is the determination to laugh, to create, to hold solidarity even while grappling with hard truths.

I have seen students confront despair when they learn about the violence of history, but I have also seen them find joy when they uncover stories of resistance or connect their own lives to traditions of survival. This form of joy does not erase pain. It transforms it. It insists that hardship is not the whole story. In classrooms and in communities, joy in spite of pain becomes courage, hope, and freedom.

Muhammad’s framing is particularly vital today, when communities face relentless cycles of grief and struggle. To insist on joy even in spite of pain is to resist being reduced to suffering. It is to declare that joy is part of the story of survival and resistance, not its opposite.

Lorgia García Peña: Joy as Community Power

Lorgia García Peña, Professor and Director of Latino Studies at Princeton, frames joy in terms of collective power. In her book Community as Rebellion, she writes that women of color feminism is not only power, it is also joy. This is a profound reminder that resistance is not only burden, but also a source of delight and strength. For García Peña, joy is inseparable from community.

This resonates with the work of education as well. Learning is never a solitary achievement. It is communal. It flourishes in spaces of care and collaboration, in the building of knowledge that resists isolation. I have seen students find joy when they collaborated on projects that mattered to their neighborhoods. Their joy was not about personal recognition but about seeing their collective ideas come to life. In that sense, knowledge itself became resistance, and joy was the fuel that made it possible.

García Peña’s framing helps us understand that joy is not just about the individual. It is about the community’s ability to come together, to resist fragmentation, and to claim power collectively. Joy here is not a byproduct but the essence of solidarity.

A Constellation of Joy

Taken together, these visions of joy from Princeton’s African American Studies faculty form a constellation. Joy is viral, spreading from small actions. Joy is aspirational, pulling us toward what we want but do not yet have. Joy is freedom, the thrill of autonomy and self-determination. Joy is resilience, happiness in spite of pain. Joy is communal power, the energy that comes from solidarity. None of these definitions excludes the others. They build on one another, offering a fuller understanding of how joy operates in the pursuit of justice.

For educators, these perspectives are not theoretical. They shape the practice of teaching itself. Joy in the classroom is not a side effect. It is the condition that makes transformation possible. Joy is what turns a classroom from a place of rote memorization and standardized testing into a space of liberation. It is what makes learning not only bearable but irresistible.

In a society that often strips joy from marginalized communities, insisting that struggle is their only story, reclaiming joy is radical. It is a refusal to be defined by suffering. It is an insistence that education, activism, and community life must be about more than survival. Joy affirms the fullness of humanity.

Which of these visions of joy inspires you most? Perhaps you see yourself in Ruha Benjamin’s call to spread joy like a virus. Perhaps Glaude’s vision of joy as aspiration matches your longing for better futures. Perhaps Hunter’s freedom-focused joy resonates with your own desire for autonomy. Maybe Muhammad’s resilient joy in spite of pain feels closest to your lived experience. Or perhaps García Peña’s emphasis on joy as community power speaks to your deepest values.

Each of these scholars reminds us that joy is not ornamental. It is essential. It fuels the struggle for justice, it animates classrooms, and it sustains movements. For me, joy is the pulse of justice. It is the heartbeat that keeps us going when the weight of inequity feels overwhelming. It is the radical insistence that education can be liberation, that learning can be love, and that communities can thrive even in the face of obstacles.

So I ask again. Which joy inspires you?

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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a nationally recognized education leader, scholar, and advocate for equity whose career spans seven senior leadership roles in higher education, including dean and provost. Known for driving innovation and measurable results, he has led institutional transformations that strengthened academic programs, advanced diversity and inclusion, expanded community partnerships, and elevated national rankings. His leadership is grounded in the belief that true progress requires both bold vision and fearless action.