To say that this summer has been revolutionary for me may seem dramatic, but it’s the truth. Most would agree that 2020 threw the curveball no one could prepare for. For me, this year will remain monumental for the lessons I’ve learned, the baggage I’ve released, and the layers wrapped around my identity that I’ve begun stripping away since realizing they didn’t belong there.
When ICU beds overflowed with COVID-19 patients and this nation was set aflame with fiery rage against white supremacy and police brutality, my productivity slowed to a full stop. I went from writing thousands of words a day to sliding my laptop underneath my bed, completely out of sight. My soul was weary and I needed an uplifting.
I escaped to a trustworthy place of comfort: the words and art of Black women. I read Black women’s literature, listened to only Black women theologians and preachers, took notes from Black women scholars. Little by little, my soul was watered and faith restored.
Through the work of these powerful Black women contemporaries, elders, and ancestors, I began to journey towards my own liberation. These women breathed refreshing life that made me feel confident showing up in any space fully woman, fully Black, fully liberated. There’s so much more that I’ll be sharing about this later, but this is the framework for where I am today.
One might say that The Liberated Women Collection was brewing even then… during those moments when I gave myself permission to choose rest over grinding, when my only prayers to God were hot tears of anger and frustration, when I began rejecting harmful theology that took shape during my upbringing.
I am on a journey that has sparked new joy, newfound faith, and overwhelming liberation from repressive ideas that once caused me to shrink myself.
Never again.
Never again.
With that, it’s my pleasure to introduce The Liberated Women Collection. Consider it an ode, a love letter to affirm anyone else who may be on this journey with me. I hope you'll buy a shirt or hoodie, wear it with pride and your head held high. Your support means the world to me.
True liberation is a process; it’s real work undoing the programs that were wired in our brains and built into our broken society. But the chipping away, the stripping of layers, the small choices we make that get us closer to our whole selves… that’s empowerment.
Yeah. That’s the good stuff.