A Love Letter to Black Women
A Love Letter to Black Women
Honoring My Sisters Who Carry Survivors, Movements, Each Other, and Themselves—Still We Rise!
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
To my sisters, my friends, my colleagues, my tribe—Black women, this letter is for you.
As I reflect on the 300,000 (and counting) unemployed Black women who recently lost their jobs, and the thousands who have been continuously harmed for decades by organizations funded to provide trauma-informed services to and on behalf of survivors of gender-based violence, I felt the tug and urgency to speak directly to my sisters.
Too often, the world has looked past your pain. Your struggles overlooked as noise rather than worthy of care. Your stories of survival have been dismissed, minimized, or deemed inconvenient. Your truths have been questioned, your wounds ignored, your brilliance overshadowed by unfair practices that attempt to reduce your humanity.
Systems that should protect have betrayed you; movements that should center you have attempted to erase you. And yet—you rise!
Despite the silence and the dismissal, you have always been the ones who show up. You are the strategists, the healers, the nurturers, the visionaries, the truth-tellers. You are the ones who hold space for survivors, even as your own stories remain untold.
You are the heartbeat of communities, organizations, and movements that would not exist without your labor, your wisdom, your care, and your love.
Your strength is not only in what you carry, but in the way you transform struggle into joy, pain into purpose, tears into dance, silence into song, sorrow into peace, and chaos into community. Your resilience is not just survival, it is brilliance. It is the light that refuses to dim, the voice that refuses to be silenced, the presence that refuses to be erased.
To every Black woman advocate who continues to fight for survivor justice and gender equity, to every survivor who chooses herself and reclaims her story, to every sister who holds it down when the work is heavy, this month, and every month, I see you.
I honor you.
I celebrate you.
I am you.
Against all odds.
Through every roadblock.
Despite the barriers.
Still, we rise.
We rise for the survivors in our communities who have been overlooked.
We rise for our sisters who deserve rest, recognition, and care.
We rise for Black girls who deserve lives free from violence and oppression.
We rise for generations ahead, who deserve freedom, justice, and joy.
We rise for ourselves, because our wholeness, our stories, our healing, and our joy matter.
Keep moving forward, sis, you got this!
You are your ancestors’ wildest dream.
Never compromise your value. Move with that truth!
You are worthy not only because of what you've survived, but because of your HERstory and the fullness of who you are—your laughter, your smile, your presence, your brilliance, your wisdom, your dreams, your gifts, and your joy.
May your gifts be nurtured and uplifted.
May your dreams be realized.
May your joy be protected.
May your love return to you in abundance.
Choose people who appreciate you for who you are.
Choose spaces that honor your truth and respect you for all that you bring.
You are worthy.
With much love, solidarity, and gratitude! #DVAM2025 #StillWeRise
- Arlene Vassell, Founding Director, TooREL Institute for Social Change
*Share this letter with a Black woman you love, honor, and celebrate this month.
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