by Candace Simpson

“The tragic loneliness Black women consistently face as we stand before judgmental others — sometimes white but sometimes Black; sometimes male, but sometimes female — demands that we have some wisdom, experience, and some passion with which to combat this abuse.” —Karla Holloway

by Altheria Gaston

Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about Brittany Ann (Bree) Newsome, the social justice activist who, in an amazing act of defiance, scaled the pole and removed the Confederate flag in front of the South Carolina Statehouse. In many Internet circles, this courageous Black woman has been rightly accorded hero status. When I first heard about Bree, I immediately thought of Alice Walker’s description of womanist. In her multifaceted definition of womanist, Walker includes the following meaning: