We know that one of the best ways to invest in Black feminists is to connect them to each other, converging the wealth of our collective knowledge and expertise within our movements. We believe this is essential in the work of building resilient movements.
The Black Feminisms Forum aimed to create a welcoming, accessible, diverse, enabling, and celebratory Black feminist pedagogical community. In the quest to (re)imagine societies, systems, cultures, and economies we shared and exchanged our transformative and radical strategies, tactics and dreams.
The Journey
While this was our first convening as the BFF, another Black Feminisms Forum was part of our journey. That Forum, held in Bahia in 2016, was an effort to celebrate and honour the contributions of Black feminists and activists across diverse social movements and to build strong(er) relationships among Black feminists in social movements globally.
The 2024 Global Black Feminisms Forum was another bold and brave space for Black feminists to come together from diverse movements, territories and identities to explore, dialogue, debate, and share the intersections of our struggles and activisms. During the convening four hundred Black feminists shared knowledge, struggles, and joy while building solidarity and collective power.
Intention & Approach
The Black Feminisms Forum was designed to allow Black feminist activists, scholars, and cultural workers to build transnational strategies collectively. The position of Black women and gender-expansive people at intersectional crossroads allows us to propose multi-dimensional ways out of global crises and into unbound possibility.
The Black Feminisms Forum recognized this potential and wanted to serve as a space where we could exchange wisdom, tools, and knowledge in order to build strong relationships of solidarity and effective coalitions between Black feminists movements.
The Black Feminisms Forum was designed to be a space where Black feminists from diverse movements, territories, and identities could come together to explore and debate, speak openly and freely, and overcome barriers as they develop an insurgent knowledge that understands the intersections of our struggles and activisms.
Building Black Feminist Worlds
As Black women and gender-expansive people, we experience many ways oppression expresses itself in our lives. Black feminists are not only resisting intertwined systems of oppression, we are also world building: building and rebuilding economies, institutions, territories, relationships and cultures in which we can all thrive. From agroecology, to different abilities’ cultures and trans pedagogies, to restorative justice and peace building, Black women, girls and gender expansive people are living Black feminist worlds.
Black Feminists organize within and beyond regions, recognizing that no one is free, until we are all free. Beyond borders, across generations and embracing our identities, our solidarities drive our dreams beyond current realities. Many of us exist at intersectional crossroads which allows us to propose multi-dimensional ways out of global crises and into unbound possibility.
The Black Feminisms Forum recognized this potential and served as a vehicle for Black Feminist World Building.
Reflecting on Barbados
"How a feminist Eden is made" - OluTimehin
Reflect with us and re-enter the world that we created together. A world that is movement centered. A world that reflects and affirms all our diversities. A space that fuels and expands our imaginations for the worlds we must build.