African American women have been the backbone of the African American community since their ancestors were forcefully brought to what is now known as the United States. While this remains a fact, the nuances of Black womanhood and its relationship to public and private advocacy have been largely ignored, dismissed, and/or unable to be captured by social work researchers. When the focus shifts to Black women narratives, too often what follows are insights in alignment with dominant Eurocentric frameworks, focusing chiefly on experiences that are palatable to those disinterested in acknowledging the legacy of racism and oppression. As a result, there is a dearth of knowledge exploring the wisdom borne from generations of advocacy executed by Black women as a source of survival and fulfillment. This leaves modern-day Black women advocates without a roadmap for combatting race-based trauma, and the practitioners that serve Black women reliant on harmful so-called “best practices” that defy Black cultural values. Much research conducted about Black women activists is less focused on their personal experiences and more on their perspectives about what they have contributed to society. While these insights are valuable, without the full picture of Black women’s lives, pathology and dehumanization are perpetuated. This study explains findings from a secondary data analysis of oral history interviews archived in the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library, Black Women Oral History Project, collected from 1976 to 1981. By applying an anti-colonial Womanist conceptual framework, this study centers on the everyday experiences of six African American woman advocates during the civil rights era. Perspectives around concepts of mental health, healing, spirituality, and religion are illuminated. Utilizing the Womanist Triad of Concern, concerned with the human-human relationship, the human-spirit relationship, and the human-nature relationship, I discuss how sustenance, sacrifice, and solidarity are seen throughout the themes: connection and protection. Employing a reflexive thematic analysis, this study sought to amplify oral history as an anti-colonial methodology to interrupt harmful, dominant narratives in history. As a spiritually guided, African American woman advocate, I engaged in collaboration and meaning-making of the oral histories and this informed the sensemaking around the implications for contemporary change-making Black women, as well as recommendations for future research, policy, and decolonial social work practice.