AFG’s Statement on Black History Month 2022

As we move into Black History Month, Alliance for Girls* celebrates Black-led organizations within our network and the powerful Black girls and gender-expansive youth advancing gender equity in their schools, communities, districts, counties, and state. Black leaders and activists throughout history and today have pushed tirelessly for American society, and the world at large, to take a hard look at the continuous state-sanctioned violence, oppression, and dehumanization of Black people that is the norm in our countries. Knowing this history of oppression and resilience of Black people and celebrating their immense contributions in all facets of society is essential for us to effectively dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequity. Within our membership, Black women-led organizations model an intersectional approach to advance gender equity and center the experiences, ideas and solutions of girls and gender-expansive youth of color. We honor the innumerable contributions, strength, and wisdom of Black women and girls that are a bedrock of the girl-serving sector.For Black Girls’ Brilliance, a global middle school Black girls’ program currently operating in the United States and South Africa, this means combatting over-policing, sexual violence and harassment, and the systemic oppressions within schools and communities that keep Black girls from actively thriving in society. African American Female Excellence (AAFE) addresses the disparities in educational and social outcomes for African American girls and young women from preschool through high school.For TechBridge Girls, it means re-engineering the way BIPOC girls and gender-expansive youth from marginalized communities experience STEM and developing the capacity of STEM educators and professionals as equity educators and advocates for BIPOC girls and gender-expansive youth.For MISSSEY (Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting & Serving Sexually Exploited Youth) this looks like providing services to commercially sexually exploited youth and changing the systems that keep them vulnerable to sexual violence.At BlackFemaleProject this means uplifting the voices of Black women, affirming their experiences and offering insights of how to achieve self-defined success for Black women and girls in the workplace and beyond.Similarly, Betti Ono Foundation builds power through culture by amplifying the voices of artists and celebrating the culture of everyday people, especially Black and Brown people.These organizations, their staff and leaders, and so many other Black-led organizations within and outside of the Alliance for Girls network demonstrate how essential racial equity is in the fight towards gender equity. Any efforts to separate the two will perpetuate inequities the gender equity movement aims to abolish. Join us in celebrating Black girls and gender-expansive youth and in learning from their leadership and vision.Donate to Black-led Organizations in our Network

• • Black Girls’ Brilliance
  • African American Female Excellence
  • TechBridge Girls, Inc. 
  • MISSSEY
  • BlackFemaleProject
  • Betti Ono Foundation
  • Dimensions Dance Theater
  • Career Girls
  • Girls For A Change
  • Girls Inc. of Alameda County
  • Bay Area Girls Club
  • The Mentoring Center
  • Go Girls! Oakland
  • Hunnicutt Foundation
  • Oakland Natives Gives Back
  • Girls Taking Up Space

Recommended Resources 

• Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Journalist, Activist & Researcher
• Toni Morrison, First African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
• June Jordan, Bisexual Essayist, Playwright & Poet
• Patricia Hill Collins, Professor of Sociology with a focus on Intersectionality
• Combahee River Collective, Collective of Black feminists