04/02/2025
Black girls are the blueprint!
We have officially opened registration for our summer camp- The Liberation Lab Summer Institute! For years, we have been dreaming, planning, and creating–asking ourselves, What does it mean to build and create new worlds with Black girls? To make space for them to dream. To create. To play. To be well. To just be. To equip them with the language and tools to name their experiences, challenge harmful narratives, and shape the worlds they want to live in.
The Liberation Lab was born from this vision, and our Summer Institute for Black Girls is its manifestation. The mission of the Liberation Lab is to cultivate a liberatory space where Black girls use their creativity to build new worlds and meaning-making through art, design, dialogue, and activism, centering joy, wellness, and collective freedom. We understand liberatory space as a space for Black girls intentionally cultivated to affirm, uplift, and nurture Black girls’ identities while fostering their critical consciousness. It is a space where Black girls are seen, heard, and valued in their full humanity, free from the constraints of dominant narratives that seek to marginalize or silence them.
Learning and creation with Black girls is not just an intellectual pursuit, but a spiritual one. A pursuit of purpose. A journey of (re)membering. That guidance continues to direct the path of my work while serving as a reminder to (re)member. To (re)member is to see ourselves clearly. To know where we come from. To honor the lineages and traditions that shape us, and to reject the distortions imposed upon us.
Black girls have always used fashion, language, and creative expression as a means of resistance, power, and joy. Whether through the way we style our hair, give weight to words, or adorn ourselves in ways that declare who we are to the world, we have always done it for the culture.
This summer, middle school Black girls in Durham will explore fashion as a tool for liberation, designing not just clothing, but new possibilities for themselves and their communities. They’ll engage in collective visioning, critical dialogue, and liberatory design, all while being in an intentional, affirming community with one another.
And this is just the beginning. The Liberation Lab is about ongoing intergenerational space-making with high school leaders, undergraduate mentors, and Black women in community. Because building worlds for Black girls requires all of us.
Share with your networks, and if you have or know Black girls entering 6th grade through outgoing 8th graders, tap in!
**The camp comes at no cost! It is indeed, FREE!!
https://forms.gle/pH6PVEvrptuXAGNu5
