By Kimberly Foster @KimberlyNFoster

I was a lonely child. I had a friend or two, but I often felt unlikable—that I was strange and damaged because what came so easily for others evaded me. I avoided engaging with kids my age because I could never quite get the hang of it. My interactions with peers were awkward. They left me filled with self-doubt. So I learned to perform extroversion early. I mimicked the kinds of personalities I saw others flock to.

These shows won me attention and acquaintances but never deep connections. Always being “on” put a barrier between the sensitive girl I was, and still am, and the world that would reject her. Hiding in the open has been safe and comfortable. And when I am not performing, I retreat.
Introversion is misunderstood. Many interpret a preference for stillness as arrogance or misanthropy. When, for me, it has been a byproduct of a lifelong battle with anxiety and insecurity. As an adult, I work through it by spending time with my thoughts. It is not selfish, nor is it weird. And this does not make me unlovable.

Prolonged stretches with limited interactions are important to me, a true introvert, but I’ve always desired the community that accompanies deep, meaningful friendships. In my childhood bedroom, I dreamed of the day when I would be able to get away and find my people—the people who didn’t question the quirks, who laughed at the jokes, who identified with the values. I was looking for my tribe.

I found them in college. By the end of Freshman spring, I had grown close to the women I now call my soul mates. They got me. I didn’t have to explain the jokes or apologize for the emotional outbursts. Our bonds have been more fulfilling than I could have imagined. We can spend months a part and gather for celebrations as if no time has passed. I am lucky. We all are.

I knew that the love we shared was about more than proximity after my dad died during my Sophomore year in. I dropped out of school. I hid, once again, out of embarrassment and sadness. But they continued to show care even from thousands of miles away, during at a time when I could not care for myself.

And when I told them that I was not going to get a real job, no one tried to discourage me. Instead of seeding doubt, they checked in, asked questions and gave to fundraisers. It was an essential vote of confidence.

Together we have weathered tumult and triumph, and after nearly a decade, they’ve become a sort of home for me— a place I can always return to.

This surety has made dating much less painful. As I’ve wandered in and out of unhealthy romantic relationships, I knew they were there. During a rocky period in the healthiest relationship with the most well-adjusted person I’ve ever dated, I realized he might leave. As I considered how I would navigate out of the hole of heartbreak, I remembered that I would always be ok because my home, comprised of the most constant presences in my life, was unmoved.

Thusly, I have abandoned the common conception of soul mate as a romantic love. There is a particular burden of social expectation put upon straight women, that our male partner will be our everything. That through him we will be fully seen and whole. That could never be true for me. Whomever I partner will get me as fully-formed and functional because of the eternal loves I’ve already found.
When I watch Oprah describe to Barbara Walters her best friend, Gayle, as “the mother that I never had, the sister that everybody would want, the friend that everybody deserves” I understand completely. When she explains that she’s crying because she does not tell her that enough, I understand that too.

Because I have not tributed my best friends, my sisters, my soul mates, the women who have loved and cared for me consistently, who have invested without expectation of return, nearly enough. But everyday I am grateful for their boundless kindness and generosity.

Photo: iStockPhoto

Kimberly Foster is the founder and editor-in-chief of For Harriet. Email or Follow @KimberlyNFoster

by Jacqui Germain

Zora Neale Hurston’s birthday was on January 7. Writers all over celebrated the 125th anniversary with favorite Hurston quotes and thoughtful commentary on the legacy of her writing. She’s most well-known for the seminal 1937 text, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in addition to authoring numerous other equally brave books, plays, short stories, poems, and essays. Their Eyes Were Watching God has been translated to the stage and the silver screen, and sits proudly on many bookshelves both in and outside of the academy. Today, few would dispute the book’s significance, or the gravity of its author’s wisdom and craft, but as is often true with artists of color, Hurston’s posthumous fame dwarfs the recognition she received while she was alive.


Few know that Hurston died in a Welfare Home, and was buried in an unmarked grave in 1960. Few know that her work went largely unread for years afterwards. In fact, Their Eyes Were Watching God was almost lost in its obscurity, as were her other works, and even the location of her remains. But do you know who looked for her? Do you know who found her and pushed her writing back into the literary light? Do you know who, with help from a friend, paid to have a headstone made 13 years after Hurston’s death? Alice Walker, another black woman writer, with her own impressive resume of work, most well-known for her 1982 novel, The Color Purple.

“We’re us with all of our parts…We have our Langston, we have our Dubois, we have our Zora, we have our Nella, you know—it’s a very good medicine, it’s a very good way to be—whole. We want to be whole.” – Alice Walker, from her 2003 lecture at Barnard College

But then, isn’t that how it’s always been? Black women are the ones who look for and find each other. We’re the first and sometimes only ones to notice our absence at all, to feel the void when one of us goes missing, is erased or shut out, is ignored or dismissed. Aren’t we so often our own search parties? The guardians of each other’s bones and legacy? Isn’t it always up to us to find each other? To say to one another, I see you. You are here—and mark the Earth with a rock or a hashtag in service of memory. Isn’t it always up to us to find each other?

The past couple weeks (the last few months, I mean, year and a half / couple years / decade(s) / so long for so many of our foremothers) have been especially rough for black women in this movement. Sometimes it’s white supremacy, and sometimes it’s patriarchy; many times, it’s both. Sometimes it’s neither.



Lately though, I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of aggressive, violent misogyny being hurled at black women by not all, but still too many black men. Their brazen homophobia and transphobia is standard; their casual—even criminal—attitudes toward gender-based and sexual violence are regularly displayed. In too many of these cases, the violence and aggression comes from black men who claim some sort of pro-black posturing. The same black male comrades we black women have linked arms and blocked highways with. The same black comrades we’ve grieved for and with, exposing ourselves to all manner of gendered bigotry, harassment and targeting—all in service of a movement built to support and fight for collective liberation. And still, so often black women freedom fighters are met with violence from the very people we’re fighting for freedom with.

The relentlessness of this aggression wears on black women and can produce a kind of exhaustion that threatens to engulf and swallow. It’s an exhaustion that can weigh down our tongues and take up so much space, we nearly disappear—and all our work, wisdom and voice along with us. So in resistance to that, let the following letter be me mounting a virtual search party. Let it be a floodlight and smoke signals all at once. Let it be two warm hands cupping your face, holding your cheeks saying, I see you. You’re here. Let it be the thing that lets you feel found, if you need it, and encourages you to look for and find others. Ashe:

Letter to black women freedom fighters, the black women movement-building and resisting in all the ways we’ve come to understand resistance:

I know you’re tired. We’re all tired of this shit. Of hearing it, of experiencing it, of being asked to prove it, of fighting against it, of dying from it. Of dying from it. We remember the casual sexism in movement meetings, the homophobic slurs tossed around at protests, being cat-called in the middle of an intersection while facing off with rows of riot police. We see the black men who make light of inter-personal violence, even suggest it as a viable option, but mask it as a joke so they can name our frustration something else. We see all of it and we remember all of it. Many of us understand this violence intimately, tangibly. And by many of us, I mostly mean all of us, though I don’t have the numbers to back that up, aside from the knowledge of this world being what it is for black women.

But I see you. You’re here. You exist. Even in spite of the world being what it is for black women. The black men who are sick of your resistance and leadership, who might wish you elsewhere, and who perhaps embody that wish with their harassment and vitriol, want you to disappear. And if you have disappeared, it’s okay. Our bodies, despite what they’d have us believe, are made to survive, and sometimes survival means shrinking, and folding into ourselves for a kind of conditional safety. We mustn’t be angry with our bodies for how they’ve learned to survive, but we should teach our bodies how to survive better.




For such lessons on survival, I turn to our history. Our foremothers left us these gifts. Our struggle is part of a long, winding legacy of continuously fighting this shit. Whether they talk about it in the documentary or not. Whether there’s a chapter in the book on us or not. We know this already. We’ve been experiencing violence and oppression from our black male comrades for generations in the midst of participating in collective movement work and building our own resistance spaces. The exhaustion that wears us thin is not new. We come from a long line of black women freedom fighters who’ve been erased from the history of black resistance and survival. But we also come from a long lineage of black women search parties. We’ve been looking for and finding each other for decades, even across time and space, even across languages. We find each other.

This is how we survive—by black women persistently looking for and finding each other. Since August of 2014, I’ve relied heavily on this to survive. Time and time again, other black women have found me, made me feel seen, and encouraged me to look for other black women who had been pushed into the void. Being lost and found again and again teaches me how be braver with love; all the most successful search parties are drenched in it. Being lost and found again and again is also a lesson in collectivism. After all, we have to be willing to look for each other. Continuing this sort of legacy isn’t inherent; it requires that we work to continue it until, hopefully, we don’t have to anymore.

But in the meantime, take comfort in the fact that some of us are actually invested in learning how to love all of us better. We’re queering our search parties. Becoming brighter flood lamps. Excavating our own histories to make sure all our foremothers have headstones. This is the work of continuing legacy. “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond,” declares another foremother, the inimitable Gwendolyn Brooks.

And indeed, we are.

by Ashley J. Hobbs

In 2009, at the New Jersey Governor’s Conference for Women in Atlantic City, I sat under the sound of one of most beautiful voices I had ever heard. She was assisted onto the stage, and into a chair where her body, though frail, sat tall. Her shoulders evoked an eagle’s wings - broad, regal. She was everything I had imagined her to be when I read her work and teary-eyed, I remember thinking I would never forget this moment. Ever.

As she shifted for comfort in her seat, Dr. Maya Angelou recounted an old African American spiritual that had meant so much to her through the years:

“When it looked like the sunWasn’t gonna shine anymoreGod put a rainbow in the clouds.”

She reminisced about the many instances in her life where clouds hung over her, threatening to outshine any spot of good.

“But I’ve had so many rainbows in my clouds. So many people have been rainbows in my clouds.”

She told of the plethora of times when she entered a classroom to lecture or stepped onto a stage to perform and how in those moments she brought with her every single person who had ever treated her kindly. She brought their kindness, their being with her for help, hope, and strength. She encouraged us, the sea of professional women, students, politicians, and teachers to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud no matter the differences or distances we see between ourselves and others.




Last week, as we - Black Women's Blueprint - traveled to Oklahoma City I was unsure of what to expect. I had never attended court except to sit on a small-time jury a few years ago. I was praying for traveling mercies for us and the gifts of justice and peace for the survivors of former police officer, remorseless monster, Daniel Holtzclaw. I was remembering the way in which my Aunt Gigi used to sit quietly, prayerfully, waiting on a word from God, that the path she needed to travel whether spiritually or physically would yield the fruit of triumph no matter the obstacles sure to arise along the way.

With upwards of 20 years of social anxiety slowly beginning to dissipate, I looked up into the cloud-filled sky, somewhere between Illinois and Missouri and blinked hard. I looked around the van at my co-workers/sistren to see if anyone else was noticing what I was noticing. Around the edges of each cloud - and there were clouds as far as the eye could see - there were bits of color. I squinted. No mistake - there were small rainbows laying themselves down along the edges of the clouds. It amazed me so much that I sat, mouth open, for a few moments. I was remembering every miraculous thing I had ever seen, every divine confirmation I had ever received.

I was searching for a sign. Anything God wanted to grace me with to show me that this trip was blessed and exactly our purpose would be. Not that I didn’t believe in the work we were going to do but sometimes (most times, for me) I need God to shine a light ahead of me, to draw my attention to what matters most and fade out the background.

Looking up and seeing those beautiful bits of color adorning an otherwise dreary sky transported me back to the Atlantic City Convention Center in May of 2009. A first-year business school student then, I had no idea that those words I heard that day would come full circle to have unmeasured meaning in my life on a justice ride to Oklahoma City, some seven years later. We were braving a 22-hour ride to Oklahoma City to simply but powerfully be rainbows in the clouds of these survivors. We were riding through sleet, passing overturned tractor-trailers, and storm-born desolation to simply be present for sisters we knew only in spirit.

Contrary to popular opinion and practice, we didn’t have to know their names or hail from the same county. We didn’t need to know their pedigree or check out their backgrounds. Their religious affiliations did not matter nor did their political leanings. You don’t have to know a sister to be a sister. Sisterhood extends across miles and generations. It binds where blood cannot. These were indeed our sisters and it was indeed our duty, nay, our privilege to stand with them - as Black women, as descendants of queendoms, and as survivors ourselves.

The overwhelming drive to constantly be DOING and CREATING and PROMOTING can force us into a corner of believing that our simple presence is not powerful. That our commitment to being supportive is of no value. I choose to believe that we were meant to be rainbows in this, perhaps, one of the greatest clouds that might ever hang over those women's heads. If that meant traveling 22 hours simply for them to see our faces and feel the love and light we brought with us, we had done well.



A calm came over me as I looked into the sky. No matter what turn of events lay ahead of us, I had a peace that was fairly unshaken. No distance is too far to sojourn when sisterhood is called upon. No battle is too daunting when our kindred are hurting, broken, or dying.

The two days that we spent in Oklahoma City were cloudy, cold, and wet. The morning we packed up the Sprinter to head back east, joyful that 263 consecutive years had given some semblance of justice to our sistren, the sun shone brightly, fiercely, and in all its glory.

Photo: Courtesy of Ashley J. Hobbs

Ashley is a writer, teacher, creative, and advocate for Black women who thrives in the service of her faith, her community, and her passions. Follow her creative works on Twitter: @templeandriot

by Diana Veiga

Acclaimed author (and Black woman oracle) Toni Morrison once said that Black women are the original girlfriends. “Black women have always been friends. I mean, if you didn’t have each other you had nothing,” Morrison said in a conversation with Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni for Essence.

My French Creole features speak to a long history of miscegenation: green eyes, skin the color of a white peach and a sharp Puritan nose to match my thinly drawn Vermillion lips. Still, my blackness is always in question because of my lightness, especially among my darker sisters. Imagine if you will, having an appearance that, if we're honest, harkens an antebellum era in which black women were viewed as a cross between farm equipment and an outlet for other's deviant sexual desires. A time when light and dark black women were separated and pitted against one another in the hopes of forever severing what should have been an unbreakable bond -- creating envy, disdain, self-loathing and unnecessary competition.

As black women we are both blessed and a blessing to others. And often, we choose to share our blessings with one another in the form of sisterhood. This sisterhood in action is witnessed by taking care of each other. But what does taking care of each other really mean, when we so often see examples of black women tearing each other apart in the media? I offer that it is when we place value in our ability to bring a moment of peace and connection to another sister in distress. After all, we never know when the tables will turn and we’ll find ourselves needing a sister’s hand. We should do this for and with each other from the heart and with good intention, for good returns good.

by Nneka M. Okona

There is nothing more radical and revolutionary than a Black woman committed to loving herself fully, and being true to herself and her journey. It is especially inspiring if that woman is a celebrity, as she can be a role model for other women to do the same.

Last week, a 17-year old Baltimore teen was viciously attacked by a local “Sisterhood” gang.

Unless you plan to engage in a street fight in the near future and are desperate to learn the latest fight winning moves, there are literally no incentives in watching Black girls featured in fight videos. And please note that this “pro” is completely sarcastic as there are numerous ways to resolve tense situations, such as effective communicating or by simply walking away, without being physical with someone else.

by Nancy Laws

American Black women have always been painted negatively in the U.S. media, which also influences the international community. From the Mammy to Jezebel to Sapphire, these stereotypes have affected society’s view of the Black Woman, setting the tone for her treatment by other communities before she is even given the opportunity to prove otherwise.

by  LaTierra Piphus

Back in the spring of 2013, I was finishing up my final courses for the Bachelor’s degree I was pursuing at a local university which was where I had spent my previous four years unlearning the societal and systematic oppression virtually all womyn of color experience growing up, maturing into my own definition of ‘womanhood’ and expanding my thought-processes on how community is developed among groups of people who have been trained to remain disconnected from one another (i.e. Black womyn).

by Fila McMillan-Antwine

When I was a brown girl I was curious – about myself, the world around me, and the endless possibilities that my heart knew were available. When I was a brown girl I was coiled – with a head full of thick, curly springs and wavy locks that danced around my head. When I was a brown girl I was confident – in myself, my abilities, my gifts, my beauty, and my necessity. There was no question about what I would be when I grew up because I knew I had the luxury of choice. It was my right to be anything I wanted to be and nothing could stop me. Years later I would realize that something could stop me and that is exactly what would happen.

by Tracie Ricks

Sheryl Underwood opened a door of discussion about African American women and how we view one another by disclosing on THE TALK a conversation that she unknowingly listened in on where she was the topic of discussion. Sheryl disclosed the names of her fellow comedians that felt some kind a way about her appearance and character. Distraught and probably hurt by the negativity, Sheryl confessed that she ‘was bruised, but not broken’. In the days since Underwood’s confession, critics and fans alike have pounced on the salaciousness of the ‘secret’, the women who were named as the ‘back-stabbers’ and the inspirational aftermath. What we as African American women have yet to discuss and explore is the roots of such negative conversation and why engaging in it is harmful.

by Tara Hughee

Sadly, on numerous occasions I have heard women claim that they don’t have many female friends because they are catty, disloyal, and full of drama. They claim to prefer the friendship of men because they are amicable, loyal, and drama-free. I find this troubling on many levels, as it reminds me of patriarchal dichotomous thinking which implies that women are the negative opposites of men.

by Neisha M. Washington

“It’s not that I don’t want love. It’s just that I don’t know if I can survive it,” I said aloud, mentally perusing my internal rolodex of broken-hearted black women--their stories brimming with the grit and grief of a Toni Morrison novel. Too often many of us learn to recognize love by its absence, and I had seen my fair share of empty. Growing up love seemed like nothing more than a tool to kill and keep women alive.  At this point I could count the number of love stories I’d seen on two hands while the cautionary tales accumulated without end.

Until NeNe Leakes became one of the most insufferable characters I've had the misfortune of watching on television, Porsha Williams and Kenya Moore were my two least favorite cast members on the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Both women are beautiful and self-absorbed, traits I normally appreciate in reality TV stars, but Porsha's ditziness and Kenya's maliciousness make them difficult to stomach.

It’s likely you’ve seen Academy Award-winning actress,  Lupita Nyong’o in photos and followed by a sea of one-word comments that sum her up existence like, “Yaaaass,” “Flawless,” Beautiful” and “Stunning.” Tapped for her beauty, intellect and all around delightfulness, she’s been praised for her classic fashion choices and perfect cocoa complexion. Mainstream critics can’t get enough of her, but for black girls especially, we seem to love seeing ourselves and the image that wasn’t always considered beautiful take center stage.

by Sikivu Hutchinson

When reality TV fixture Omarosa Manigault claimed on the Bethenny Frankel show that white women could “walk around” being mediocre and still get rewarded with opportunities—while Black women had to be exceptional—the predominantly white female studio audience gasped, outraged by her “heresy”. Omarosa’s baggage as a tabloid lightening rod notwithstanding, her charge resonated deeply with many Black women. As a Black female Ph.D., much of my professional life has involved navigating and pushing back against a very specific, insidious brand of white female racism and paternalism. In the workplace and academia, this brand has consisted of the delicate nuances of power masquerading as benevolence, the kind that grins in one's face, understanding, sympathetic, worshipping at the cult of the legendarily “strong” Negress; appropriating blackness and using it as a weapon when real world decisions about hiring, promotion, and visibility are at stake.

I had a recent encounter with her, you know, that sister who is needy as hell. I was hoping she didn’t see me and with a quick right turn down the other hallway, I would be able to dodge her. But just my luck, before I could attempt my matrix type move, she spotted me.

The age of social networking has provided millions people with the ability to connect with others like never before. Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites in the world with over 500 million registered users. Out of all social media outlets, twitter is especially popular among black people. The black twitter world is always booming with gossip, feuds, breaking news, and so much more.