BUILDING UP A DYNAMIC SISTERHOOD™

Renita Weems' article provides the optic for the nature and the questions of our work. Simply put, we come together because our community misses the teachings, presence, inspiration, love, and spiritual strength of Black women. Shelia Radford-Hill argues that there is a connection between the crisis of Black female leadership and the crisis in the Black community. Our collective moaning and gnashing are the sounds of a community "un/under-mothered" from within, and of course, from without.

Our task then is to build a sisterhood that mothers our community from within in a world that dismisses us as unessential and second-class human beings and citizens.  It requires us to also simultaneously come forward with a clear analysis of how we dehumanize and oppress each other. How might we renew our community's (including us women) grit, hope, and meaning to build a non-violent spiritual movement for compassionate justice? How might we rebuild our institutions and relationships (community formation)?

Carlyle Fielding observes, "thus, at the heart of the black community are relationships that rely on the powers of a larger, beneficent spirit, who directs the paths and sets a positive course for black life and relationships so that potential and wholeness can be realized even under adverse conditions."  

This requires us to remember how we once lived in our communities and in the world with dignity. When we remember, we redefine our identities and build new relations with God, each other, and all aspects of life.  Finally, we must enlarge our visions of movement and struggle to a holistic process where we elevate our struggle for justice to a holistic movement where we both overcome and transcend.

Quoting Radford-Hill, "transcendence... reframes the circumstances and reconfigures our encounter with the obstacle, freeing us to ask an entirely new sets of questions, such as, how come? and who said so? and who else?  These questions challenge the implicit social arrangements enforced by the ruling class. (I, Ruby, might add internalized oppression enforced by the gatekeepers in our society and our daily actions with each other.)  Asking these questions therefore creates alternatives to simply enduring racial, class, sexuality or gender oppression."

On November 17, 2005, The SpiritHouse convened an intergenerational and diverse group of Black women to explore the ways that we might renew Black female leadership so that we might be front-line and sturdy agents that rebuild our community.

Since that meeting, I have received a lot of important feedback from sisters who encouraged The SpiritHouse Project to provide concrete leadership in moving toward the common agenda of building a community of Black female activists who work together to rebuild our institutions, relationships, and connections so that we might draw on them as resources to fight injustice.  It is also important for this work to cut across our differences while simultaneously reflecting the goals of SpiritHouse and the directives of its board.

SpiritHouse grounds its work in  Building Up a Sisterhood™ in the following:

• Leadership Formation
• Creating and Sustaining Hospitality communities™
• Keeping The Circle Unbroken: Young Black Female Activists Touching their Individual and Collective Power, Hope and Courage.™

The leadership skills of African-American women are often deeply rooted in spiritual and religious disciplines.   Historically our churches have been major sources of opportunity and implementation for Black women’s leadership.  But even beyond the administration of congregational life, African-American females have drawn on deep cultural traditions and spiritual practices of song, prayer, healing, storytelling, and hospitality to hold our people together through traumatic times.   

Hospitality has always played a central role in African-American community life, and is a foundation for community building and organizing for social justice.
The tradition of hospitality and intra-community nurturing has long been a sustaining force for Black Americans, as well as for many marginalized communities around the world. Remembering this history urges us toward the development of a national intergenerational program that will honor and redevelop African-American women's spiritually-based leadership traditions and provide experiences of Hospitality Communities™ as a groundwork for activism and building for the wider community.

Keeping The Circle Unbroken: Young Black Female Activists Touching their Individual and Collective Power, Hope and Courage.™
Our second effort related to building up a sisterhood will be a retreat for young African-American Activists called Keeping The Circle Unbroken: Young Black Female Activists Touching their Individual and Collective Power, Hope and Courage.™ This will be for young women between the ages of 17 and 30.

The retreat/gathering will happen in June and will give the participants an opportunity to get to know each other, identify the resources that they bring that can be shared with each other, and provide the context by which they do their work as young female activists. They will spend time with elders learning their stories and discussing the challenges of their work.©

SpiritHouse is trying to keep the integrity of the project by honoring and protecting its work from idea theft by trademarking the name and copywriting the ideas.  We do not want to fall prey to idea theft by groups that would misappropriate our ideas to serve their right-wing causes before we get a chance to implement the projects.  No Part of the text or titles can be used without the permission of The SpiritHouse Project.

If you agree with the direction of Building Up A Sisterhood™, please email SpiritHouse with your name, address, email, phone number, and comments.

Ruby Nell Sales
Director and Founder of the SpiritHouse Project
(202) 722-2690