
F O U N D I N G D I R E C T O R
Azurae Johnson Redmond

Azurae founded the progressive nonprofit Young, Black & Widowed during the pandemic in 2020, three years after losing her husband to lung cancer, at just 27 years old, while 5 months pregnant, with their 10-month-old on her hip. She became a certified Grief Coach and her global nonprofit has now provided peer grief support to more than 2,500 widow(er)s of every age, nationality and religion worldwide.
For her efforts in grief support, as well as her service to the Chattanooga, Tennessee community through her advocacy on nonprofit boards, she was named as one of Tennessee’s Top African-American Women in 2022 by the state-wide Tennessee Tribune. As a grief coach she is honored to lead the Modern Widows Club nonprofit’s “National Black Widows Community,” in addition to her own nonprofit’s support groups. As an educator she presents her research on young adult grievers in Welcome Home Hospice’s “Demystifying Death” series for university students. As a speaker who stepped away from her background in chemical engineering post-loss, she hosts her “Fuel Your Transformative Passion” seminars, for people who want to choose a new path after experiencing different forms of loss. As an author and foreword writer, she has contributed to a number of grief support books — all set to be released throughout Fall 2023.
B O A R D M E M B E R S
M I S S I O N
The mission of the nonprofit, Young, Black & Widowed Inc., is to connect, engage, educate and support millennial and generation Z widow(er)s of color, which proudly includes our LGBTQ+ community.
Young, Black & Widowed Inc. is a progressive 501(c)3 nonprofit, plus podcast, which connects Millennial & Generation Z widow(er)s of color to a daily one-on-one peer support line, engages widow(er)s in weekly grief support groups, educates widow(er)s about grief resources and survivor benefits, supports them and future generations with scholarships to impact their careers, gives them a creative outlet via the community podcast to express subjects like the mental exasperation of being isolated during Covid-19 as a widow(er), the challenges of solo-parent during a global pandemic, the disproportionate loss of life in the Black community, societal stigmas against LGBTQ+ people and racial injustices we all suffer within our everyday lives. In effort to deal with the physical and mental traumas widow(er)s face, the nonprofit links widow(er)s to professionals within their home cities, across the United States.
Brittany Jones - Los Angeles
Shateka Johnson - New York City
Tonia Wilson - Detroit
Maya Bendoe - Tallahassee
TMIKE Malone - Atlanta
Alex Freeman - Chattanooga
Tyneshia Perine - Orlando
Juanetta White - New Orleans