Did you hear the news?
Pictured: GirlTREK's Northeast Regional Coach Keturah Queen in the Selma Jubilee Parade.
On Sunday, GirlTREK’s global network activated for a historic meeting with more than 17,000 Black women from every corner of the country and as far away as Panama, the U.K. and Kenya.
These women are the activists who will lead our 1M+ members into better health and help us to organize a campaign to increase the life expectancy of Black women in the U.S. by 10 years in 10 years.
They gathered in a grapevine of house parties hosted across the country in honor of Harriet Tubman, with others connecting from their homes via a livestream.
It was a powerful demonstration of our movement’s might and a historic moment in GirlTREK’s history.
We opened the meeting with a special message from Mother Pauline Johnson, Harriet Tubman’s oldest living relative, introduced new pledge language, voted on our next membership meeting location (Washington, DC), incorporated a Council of Elders as a new advisory body, approved a campaign to fund the lighting of the historic sign in front of Bricklayers Hall, and unveiled our strategic intention to use this year to move off of social media to organize in the streets of our neighborhoods and demonstrate with our feet what we believe and who we are.
Adding to the significance of the day, the President of the National Council of Negro Women, Shavon Arline-Bradley, affirmed GirlTREK’s place within the enduring legacy of Black women’s collective efforts toward our liberation.
You had to be there, but if you weren’t you can watch the replay.
The instructions from the meeting were simple:
Get ready for April 1st. We are going to #GetFree from everything not serving us in a 10-week walking challenge called Self-Care for Freedom Fighters.
This 10-week walking wellness challenge will be a transformative experience. You will get the accountability, the inspiration and the practical tips to help you jumpstart your health this year. Every Monday we will send you weekly self-care assignments, and your girls Vanessa and Morgan will host a Saturday morning call with women from across the country who will share lessons on radical self-care. #SisterhoodSaturdays
At the end of the 10 weeks, we will graduate to the streets of our neighborhoods for a Freedom Summer that will honor the foot soldiers whose steps we follow in, bring new life to our neighborhoods, and center our joy. We’re talking block parties, door-to-door care, and training that will prepare us for the most epic #StressProtest of our lives, coming to Labor Day 2025.
The GirlTREK season will culminate in a Fall full of service, where in the midst of one the most consequential elections of our time, we will host a convening on the State of Black Women’s Health and unveil our new agenda to save Black women’s lives.
Are you in?
If so, say yes here, and then don’t let this movement stop in your inbox. Forward this email to 10 friends who you want to be at the start line with you on April 1st.
"Rarely, if ever, is healing done in isolation. Healing is an act of communion." --bell hooks
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