Bond - Black Girls Rock!: Celebrating the Power, Beauty, and Brilliance of Black Women

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Copyright 2017 by Beverly Bond

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First 37 INK/Atria Books hardcover edition February 2018

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Interior design by Amy Trombat

Jacket photograph by Stephen McBride

Author photograph by Sancha McBurnie

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-5792-9

ISBN 978-1-5011-5793-6 (ebook)

In loving memory of my soul sister Marjory Smarth, who radiated Black Girl Magic and inspired me to live true and dance free

THERE IS A PALPABLE BLISSFULNESS in our magic. Black girl magic is a power and energy rooted in black ancestral traditions, spirituality, and sacred feminine wisdom. It is the fire in our spirit, the life force in our womb-dom, and the elixir in our holy water. You hear it in the cadence of our speech. You feel it in the weight and woefulness of our blues, but also in the encompassing protection of our love. Our astute discernment and our intuitiveness is also part of the magic. It is a grandmothers conjuring. It is the church lady catching the spirit. It is an aunties gift of sight that enables her to accurately foresee a loved ones pregnancy, just because she dreamed of fish. Our magic exists in our leadership, in our ability to make a way out of no way, to stand firm and deliver, and to speak truth to power. It lives in our collective journey and can be attributed, in part, to our shared resistance, our survival, and our remarkable resilience.

My love of black girl magic, beauty, fierceness, and realness was inspired by one of the most beautiful women in my world, my mother. Everything about my motherfrom her sense of fashion and style to her luminous smile, her dark-brown skin tone, her perfect rhythm, her impeccable dance skills, her intellect, her worldliness, her love of black culture, and her free-spiritednessattested to the beauty of black women. To me, she was the definition of black girl magic. She had a particular magic about her, and she was intent on giving it to me. In keeping with a long tradition of black mothers, her special mojo was the ability to make something out of nothing, a gift that has been passed down from black mothers to their daughters for generations.

I witnessed firsthand the incredible fortitude of black women through my mothers example. The heavy history of black people in America has caused black women to have to shoulder more than their share of the burden of keeping their families intact. My mother was no different. Like many single black mothers, she carried the full weight of the responsibility of being the sole provider. The pressure on her was enormous, but she did it anyway and shielded me from her burden.

My mother wasnt a formal educator, but she was, by far, my best teacher. She was a cultural connoisseur, a student of black genius, which she shared with me. She educated me about the richness and diversity of the legacy of black people by harnessing the tremendous cultural and historical currency found in our creativity, resilience, and heroism. Music was her passion. Every Saturday when we cleaned the house together, she would dig in the crates and teach me about all sorts of music, and I loved it. She played everything from Curtis Mayfield to Kurtis Blow. She would play world music artists such as Hugh Masekela, Babatunde Olatunji, and Celia Cruz. Shed play an array of jazz, blues, and soul greats like B. B. King, Nina Simone, Betty Wright, Ruth Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan, Booker T. & the MGs, Phoebe Snow, Jimmy Smith, Roy Ayers, James Brown, Donny Hathaway, and so many others. It was this early exposure to and study of our art that set the bar for my musical palate and that would help me to grow into a music enthusiast and curator.

Not only did this Saturday ritual give me an incredible education in the richness of our music but I also gained a deep appreciation for our composition and creativity and an immense love of black ingenuity. I paid attention to the intricacies, the subtleties, and the grandness of our rhythmic expression. I could hear the heartbeat in our drums. I could feel the healing in our soul. Our symphony was part philosophy, part spirituality, part jubilation, and part testimony, blended with euphonious and harmonious melodies. I realized that the genius expressed through our song was a pathway to connect us to our higher selves. Our music was prayer. It fed our spirit, it fueled our consciousness, and it grounded our humanity. It was the pulse of the black experience, and it was magnificent.

In addition to developing a deep love for our cultural contributions, my passion for justice and equality for black people was also cultivated by the things my mother taught me. She exposed me to black history that wasnt taught in schools. She always countered and corrected false or limited information about black peoples meaning to the world. She taught me that our story didnt begin in slavery. She dispelled the myth that we have a white savior to thank for freeing us. She made sure I understood that black people who were enslaved were not docile and submissive and that their fight for freedom and survival was incessant. She educated me about the abolitionist movements of Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, and white allies like John Brown. She made sure I didnt belittle the tragic history of slavery and its lasting impact on the black community. Instead, she made me look directly at the unfathomable cruelty of our tormentors and their descendants. She made me aware that we were owed something, and that the debt had never been fulfilled. She explained the multicentury head start our subjugation and disenfranchisement gave to the white beneficiaries of slavery. From my mothers lessons I understood the lingering effects of systemic oppression and institutional racism. She never let me forget that our freedom was not free. People fought, sacrificed, and died for our liberty. She taught me about the Civil Rights Movement and its key players, beyond Martin Luther King Jr. She made sure I also knew about sheroes and heroes such as Mary McLeod Bethune, Malcolm X, Marian Wright Edelman, Julian Bond, Huey P. Newton, Angela Davis, and Stokely Carmichael.