About Us
Grief Is Sacred. Grief Is Political. Grief Is Ours.
The Ratchet Grief Project® exists to disrupt respectability politics around grief and create sacred, inclusive spaces for Black people and marginalized communities.
What we are
Why The Ratchet Grief Project® exists
The Ratchet Grief Project® is a grief education organization rooted in womanist thought, expansive spiritual awareness, and just and ethical community care. We center the grief of Black people and marginalized communities — not as an afterthought, but as the foundation.
We believe grief is sacred, political, and communal. We believe the way we grieve is shaped by race, class, gender, and systems of power. And we believe every person deserves to be held in their grief without having to perform respectability to earn that care.
At The Ratchet Grief Project®, we understand grief as:
What we feel and how we respond to loss, change, and transition — including unmet expectations, unrealized dreams, and shattered assumptions. Grief is more than our response to death. It encompasses the loss of humans and non-humans, land and place, ideas and identity, opportunity and possibility.
Together, we are:
Cultivating awareness about grief.
Creating space for real people, real stories.
Considering the impact of race and class on our grief expressions and experiences.
Constructing empathetic and equitable approaches to grief support, especially for the disenfranchised and marginalized.
Co-creating rituals and more.
At the heart of The Ratchet Grief Project® is a commitment to disrupting respectability politics and creating sacred, inclusive spaces where grief can be felt, seen, and held authentically.
Who this is for
You belong here.
We hold space for all who grieve — especially those whose grief has been dismissed, minimized, or made invisible.
We welcome all gender identities and sexual orientations — including Black queer, trans, and nonbinary people whose grief is too often unseen. We welcome people of all abilities, neurodivergent folks, and those whose bodies have been pathologized rather than honored.
We welcome those navigating spiritual diversity — the churched, the unchurched, the spiritual-but-not-religious, and those whose faith has been weaponized against their grief. We welcome immigrants, diaspora communities, and those grieving the loss of homeland, language, and belonging.
We welcome those whose losses are not recognized by institutions — the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, those who have lost to state violence, and those whose grief has never been given a name. You are not too much. You are not too loud. You belong here.
Our founder
Dr. Jamie Eaddy
Womanist Theo-thanatologist
The intersection of womanist theology, pastoral care, and the scholarly study of death, dying, and bereavement — centering Black women's ways of knowing and grieving.
- Doctor of Ministry — Prophetic Preaching & Transformative Leadership
- Certified Grief Companion & Educator
- Founder, The Ratchet Grief Project®
- Creator, Re-Membering Process® Deck
Dr. Jamie Eaddy is a Womanist Theo-thanatologist — a scholar-practitioner who sits at the intersection of womanist theology, pastoral care, and the scholarly study of death, dying, and bereavement.
Her work centers Black women's ways of knowing and grieving, challenging the respectability politics that have long policed how Black and marginalized communities are permitted to mourn. She brings rigor, tenderness, and radical honesty to every space she enters.
"Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a sacred process to be witnessed — with justice, with care, and with love."
Our framework
Four pillars of liberatory grief care
Our work is grounded in a framework that honors the whole person — body, spirit, community, and history.
Womanist Thought
Centering Black women's intellectual and spiritual traditions as the foundation for how we understand grief, care, and community.
Expansive Spiritual Awareness
Honoring the full spectrum of spiritual and religious experience — without hierarchy, without gatekeeping, without shame.
Just & Ethical Community Care
Grief care that is accountable to justice — naming the systems that shape our losses and building practices of care that resist harm.
Embodied & Communal Ritual
Grief is not only cognitive. We honor the body, the collective, and the sacred through ritual, ceremony, and co-created practice.
Mission
To provide grief education, training, retreats, and rituals that center the grief of Black people and marginalized communities — rooted in womanist thought, expansive spiritual awareness, and just and ethical community care.
Vision
A world where every person — especially those most marginalized — can grieve fully, freely, and without apology.
What We Believe
- Grief is sacred and deserves to be treated as such.
- Race, class, gender, and power shape how we grieve and who gets to grieve.
- Respectability politics have no place in grief care.
- Community and ritual are essential to healing.
- Black grief matters — in all its forms, in all its complexity.
Ready to begin your grief journey?
Join us for workshops, retreats, and rituals designed to honor your grief and connect you with community.