“I ain't got nowhere to go but up”: Visions of success and struggle among African Americans transitioning into adulthood in Flint, Michigan

The economic decline of American cities devoted to skilled labor and manufacturing has contributed to poor health outcomes among inhabitants. Flint, Michigan is one example of a city in which structural factors conspire to shape health outcomes, as residents confront diminishing job opportunities and limited mobility. Nevertheless, Flint residents persist in the face of acute adversity, retaining hope for a better future. To understand how structural factors manifest in residents' lives, and in turn how they sustain this burden, we interviewed 16 African American young adults (mean age: 31 years), all life-long Flint residents, about childhood experiences that shaped their lives, their endeavors in transitioning to adulthood (e.g., education, work, raising a family), and their definitions of success. We used open coding to analyze the interviews, seeking to identity salient themes, and subsequently developed a codebook to organize these themes into overarching domains. Participants' lives were marked by a variety of stressors, ranging from economic insecurity to neighborhood violence, which were exacerbated over time by shifting socioeconomic structures. Their narratives, however, evinced themes of resilience, determination and a belief in their own success, both present and future. We examine these findings through the lens of John Henryism, a term used to describe how young African Americans of low socioeconomic status use high-effort coping strategies in the face of intense structural burden, often to the detriment of their health. We discuss how John Henryism might be revisited in a post-industrial urban context, and thereby inform health promotion strategies among this population.