First, my honest reflections.

I have loved our Dear Black Women movement with so much of me. For over 3 years, I have poured my heart, my energy, my soul into it because we are worthy of affirming spaces; because a community of Black women affirming ourselves creates a potent portal to healing that's hard to describe.

Often when I have attempted to talk about Dear Black Women, I have found that words fail, because we— under the light of communal love, acceptance, and encouragement— are truly magic. 

Upon reflection, though, I did not build Dear Black Women to honor the magic within me. 

I officially launched Dear Black Women in early 2017 after a successful pilot Affirmation Circle in December 2016. Since then, we have grown to reach over 10,000 Black women offline and online. 

Sounds great, right? Yes!

But, what I may have downplayed over the years is how much work needed to happen behind the scenes to facilitate this. Your girl (me) was doing all the things required to publish our 60 newsletters, grow our social media to 13,000+, produce our 50 events, send our 1,000+ daily affirmation texts messages, answer our countless emails, market our movement, design/maintain our website, manage our small online community, develop and manage partnerships, hire/train people to help, plan our future and fight like hell to raise money for all of it. Often while completing two Masters degrees and/or grieving losses.

In short, I was really doing tew much.

It was an arrangement that I created and it did not account for my own well being. (Case in point: At one point, I was paying the equivalent of my housing cost to send out free daily affirmation texts to 1,000s of subscribers… while facing food insecurity. See? I was doing tew much.) 

Throughout the years, I reasoned that it was okay to sacrifice some wellbeing as a runway to stability. Such are the harmful ethos of so much of entrepreneurship, community organizing, and "Black womanhood". And I subscribed to them, even when I hoped not to, in the pursuit of a larger vision.

You see the vision for Dear Black Women was to be a self-sustaining Black women's movement that did not rely on (often white) philanthropy and external funding. Truly for us by us. I understood that this would take time and could be a sensitive proposition to make, because some of us feel work done for the community should be free to the community. (Case in point: DBW lost 90% of affirmation text subscribers after the introduction of $10/year subscription, with almost 50% of respondents sharing they believe the service should be free.) 

Knowing this sensitivity, I reasoned that it was important to create experiences that “proved” the value of what we were building first, then slowly pivot to sustainability. 

But things have changed now. For me and so many of us, sustainability can't wait. Now is a time to hold on and take good care of ourselves and those we love.

So, DBW is officially sunsetting.

At its dusk, I reflect on its lasting beauty (more on that next!) and the question: How can something like DBW be built for us by us sustainably? I'm not sure yet, but I hope to live right into my answer, which --  who knows? -- may reunite us right here! 

In the meantime, get ready for your...