Reclaim and Rise: A Post-Election Retreat for Black Women to Defy, Heal, and Rise in Power

Welcome, beloved. In the aftermath of yet another election season, we find ourselves grappling with the betrayal of our own communities, where our loyalties, our leadership, and even our very identities are dissected. And too often, it is our own voices, our own brothers, our own spaces that perpetuate this harm.

This is a call to all Black women who have felt the weight of rejection, silencing, and misrecognition, especially at the hands of those we’ve called our own. We have been taught, over generations, to view ourselves and each other with mistrust, to question our own worth, and to uphold systems that diminish us.

This retreat is a place of profound recovery and healing. 

Here, we gather to shed the burdens placed upon us, to unlearn the harmful narratives that distance us from each other and from our own essence. Together, we will engage in practices of love and support, discovering what it means to treat ourselves and each other with compassion, grace, and humanity. This space is for the Black woman who has been questioned, dismissed, and vilified—not only by society at large but by our fields of activism, our families, and our communities. Seeing what happened in this election, we have to admit that we, at times, villify each other and ourselves.

Over these sacred days, we will reconnect with the truth of our histories and the magic of our diverse identities, remembering the power that has always flowed through us. We will celebrate our creativity, our many expressions of femininity and masculinity, and the divinity that lives within each of us. Through ceremonies of healing, workshops on radical self-love, and conversations that honor our shared struggles and dreams, we will build a new social contract with each other. Grounded in the full acknowledgment of each other's humanity and worthiness, we will learn to hold each other up as we step forward into a future we create together—a future where Black women are seen, loved, and celebrated in all our complexity and brilliance.

Come, beloved, and let us recover ourselves, recover each other, and rewrite the story. This journey is ours, and it begins here.