You cannot do it by yourself, but you should not worry too much because there's no way you can move without help on your dreams.

♪ (soulful music) ♪ Black Girl Genius is collective.

It is that thing that happens only because we work together, in togetherness.

It is that thing that was needed.

It was the answer to the problem and it's the best question that you've ever asked.

>> You know what's so brilliant about that?

Western mind loves to posit genius individually, which is in fact, a way of separating one from somebody else, but what you just said, and I totally agree, is Black Girl Genius is a collective act, which has roots in my culture, our culture, African history, so I love that.

We don't teach that.

(spoken word poetry) She's standing and staring tonight.

She's standing and staring tonight.

Her two black pearls are looking back at her.

Her two black pearls are looking back at her.

The mirror is hers tonight.

Break it down.

Eyes to the shoulders.

Oooh Ooooh.

Give your black girl a hug.

[cheers and applause] I stay with my home girls by my side, What we do is create the conditions of freedom.

>> I'm a home girl.

I am the ever mighty goddess of SOLHOT.

>> Yeah, oh I like that title for you.

We say home girls but it's not a gender concept in the way that the word circulates and certainly in the way it is expressed.

>> It is actually true that they know a lot more than I'm giving them credit for, and it is also true that I know more than I'm giving myself credit for.

The work at SOLHOT really requires that you believe in the thing that you're saying.

It really requires that you put some action under your words.

>> I have been thinking about this idea where we could create spaces of freedom for black girlhood, and then it was called SOLHOT, Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths, and I knew this work would be too big for me to approach by myself, and so I thought of the most brilliant black women that I knew who could co-create galaxies with me.

Aisha was at the top of this list.

You say with no hesitation, but there was some hesitation, because Aisha said okay, What do you want to do?

I said we want to do what's really important work with black girls.

Aisha was like But you know what?

I will absolutely not be a part of anything that is a project, that's trying to change these girls into something they're not .

I'm not trying to do anything reductive.

I'm not trying to manage their behavior.

I'm not trying to control them in any way.

And I was like and that's - <Aisha> because I was one of those black girls.

I come from public housing and I used to have college black women come in to tell me how wrong I was, to try to change me and to make me into something else, and I said I'm not going to work with black girls and we're about changing, but that was not the vision.

>> That was not the vision.

>> - not the vision that she had.

>> And I was like, I promise you it's not going to be anything short of revolutionary.

When Aisha showed up the first day of SOLHOT in 2006, it was exactly that, which is how we are even possible to be here today.

>> I went to all kind of stuff in the neighborhood and just like who is at the open mic?

That poem was awesome.

Okay, I need you.

I'm walking in a hallway.

This visual thing up here, this is amazing.

This girl, every time I see her, she carrying a camera.

I think she wanna make movies or something.

[laughter] She gotta be down, or we have these coffees and I was like Guess what?

The revolution is gonna go down on Friday, [laughter] and the revolution told me that you are part of it.

And they said , where is it going to go down?

I said The Boys and Girls Club.

And they were like Really?

And I'm like trust me!

(spoken word poetry) The river is hers tonight.

Not her mother's.

Black-eyed Susans.

Black-eyed Shakira.

All her wings, ALL her wings are out now.

If you can bring out something in a person, try to bring it out, because that will be the spark of your life or theirs.

SOLHOT creates that kind of libratory space, which is the reason why Dr. B does not call it a program, but more of a praxis.

>> a place to where you could be yourself.

No one needed to conform to like this little box or expectations.

You can just be yourself.

You can talk about what you need to talk about, like even controversial stuff you could -- you could talk about, and it's like, it kind of feels like a free space.

>> My dreams...

I'd like to just be like free, not have like a lot of worry or stress.

>> The conditions of making freedom involves us being present, involves us being there, willing to give with some power position and organizational acumen -- >> Right.

>> to say okay, y'all, come on .

>> This work is a holy work, and unless you're willing to toil with us, we ask that you do not show up.

I'm always thinking about being present, always thinking about what it means to make time, to be like intentional that this is the only thing that matters.

You have time, and how do you show up?

>> I think showing up can look a lot of different ways, and I think it's also saying like Hey .

I mean sometimes it is saying Hey, I can't do this.

I can't be here for whatever reason too.

I think that's a part of it, and being able to have a conversation about that.

>> I trust the girls to show up as they show up every time, interested, curious, willing.

>> Just because I'm nice, doesn't mean I'm a pushover.

My name is Rikima, and I'm strong.

>> Absolutely SOLHOT has been throughout spaces that are not necessarily for black girls to invoke the spirit of black girlhood, so invoke the spirit of our ancestors too.

One of the things that Dr. Brown, Dr. B, continually reminds us, is the idea of black girlhood, not necessarily in terms of being about age, but connected to a kind of freedom, and in the cipher, in the affirmation, she reminds us of the kind of freedom that we can have if we learn to be with ourselves in terms of black girlhood.

>> I'm not afraid to speak my mind, but it doesn't mean I'm rude and nasty.

My name is Kaylen, and I am fierce.

>> Thank you, Kaylen.

>> I'm always taken aback by the girls who come with so much to say and so much they want to do.

Like, they were just waiting on this space, waiting for the moment.

I think, that's all.

I mean, I'm just trying to create spaces where that can happen, and if that's not already happened that can be developed, but what a privilege.

>> A lot of the rituals really relate back to having a pulse on what is actually going on with the girls that we work with.

Some of the conversations that we had today, I was like, okay, well y'all are ready.

Y'all came here prepared to talk.

That's great .

Just, you know, learning about like really, you know, a lot of like local incidents, or things that have happened, or just like things they love about South Carolina, things that they don't, things that, you know, they want to change.

>> My dream for black girls in South Carolina is for them to speak up for their self, and to say what they have to say, and not to try to fit in with everyone else.

>> I enjoy like the connection, because us black girls, you know, we don't really have opportunities to connect with each other.

We only have certain programs to connect each other, but I feel like the SOLHOT program give us opportunity to come together as one.

>> I would add a stadium where black girls can come together and share what they weren't able to share when they were younger.

>> I enjoyed that we really can just be ourselves.

>> We come with all we already know.

It is kind of animated or activated, that which you already have inside of you.

>> The girls that we are working with, we know that they know something, that we know that whatever they're going to tell us is a lot more valuable than what we think that we know about them, and that also whatever we have to gather, so what we're bringing as home girls, and what they're bringing as the girls that we work with, is going to be, you know, the right kind of synergy, the right thing that needs to happen.

>> ...what you already have, which is everything, the whole galaxy, so you being here breathing, alive, that's all that's needed, so just relax, this is what we want to make together.

We're going to ask you a lot of things.

We really hope you share all that you know, think, and feel, and we just gonna have some fun, so if you can have fun, then you're definitely in the right place.

[a cappella chant and clap] - the sisters her botty dance.

Botty dance.

Bot Bot Botty dance My name's Ayanna and here's my ch ance to show my sisters the - >> I think everything we do is pretty perfect, you know, because it's not really like any rules or standards or any particular way we should come or look or dress or anything.

It's just come, show up, and be you.

>> Imagine if the world did not have black girls, black girls' style, the way black girls walk, the way black girls add color to every room and situation, the way we put our hands on our hips, the way we talk, the way we laugh.

What would the world be without us?

>> I'm so glad SOLHOT is here, because these black girls that I saw this morning, they're me.

I longed for something like this: artisticm creative, dancing, intellectual, sisterhood.

It's - it's priceless.

>> Movement was a really big kind of like component to it, so being in your body, getting out of your body, moving, dancing, that kind of thing, and so Botty Dance came about as, you know, a way to really kind of like feel that and be comfortable, especially because like as black girls, like a lot of times people tell you don't dance, don't move , like stop being fast, stop being, don't move your body like that .

[chant] When I was growing up in South Carolina, I wanted to be around words.

I wanted to be a poet.

I didn't know how to do that.

I found poets in Black World and Jet and Ebony, and started the mosaic of piecing together how to be a poet.

I discovered that I had come from a history, a continuum, of black writers.

I was not going to be taught that in the school system I lived in, but I was taught that by my community that I lived in.

When I discovered that, I realized a responsibility, a torch of information, had been passed to me.

When Ruth Nicole wrote me and asked me to do that forward, I was answering as a person of the community, again not as Nikki Finney poet so much so, but as a black girl, who had come from a continuum, who knew the story of Zora and Harriet and Sojourner, and all the artists of the Black Harlem Renaissance, and my aunts who wrote paper newspaper columns, and nobody knows their names, but were beautiful with language and words, and I realized that Ruth Nicole Brown was like Harriet to me.

She was -- she found the thing that her life was being defined by, and would be defined by, and she was reaching her hand back and bringing through the darkness into the light, hundreds potentially thousands of black girls, who were just waiting to be seen, who just wanted somebody to say, You got power.

You got intelligence.

You got love.

You got dance.

You got, all kinds of stuff going on in you .

So I was like okay, what can I do?

How can I assist in this voyage across the sea, into the air, wherever we have to go?

[singing together] ♪ What I love ♪ ♪ What I love ♪ ♪ What I love ♪ ♪ I do it cuz I like it.

♪ >> And so it starts out like Three six nine, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line.

The line broke, the monkey got choked, They all went to heaven in a little row boat.

Clap Clap.

Y'all know that song.

That's what I was thinking of when I was reading what she was writing about, what does it mean to be a black girl in America, and where are the stories of black girls in America, and why do we only hear about black girls in America when they are thrown up against the wall somewhere?

Why don't we celebrate their genius?

Why don't we, you know, talk about them in more revolutionary evolutionary terms than just like what we can't do, what we shouldn't do, how loud we can be?

[clap - clap clap clap] [clap - clap clap clap] [clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

[clap - clap clap clap] It's your birthday.

I am really interested in sound, one, because I realize that volume is often used to colonize black girls, and so we are often told we're too loud, or if there's a group of more than three black girls, you know, I've been in spaces where people have come to see what it is we were doing, like this kind of surveillance, because we were laughing loudly, or all the ways in which our volume then triggers how other people interact, and how they call, see, name us, and mostly in choir, which I find really offensive.

Like what are you all doing here?

Going back -- >> Generating power.

>> Right, like what do you mean?

We are here, like we are allowed to exist to be here.

[chant] Love.

Love.

Love, uh-huh.

Love, uh-huh.

Love, uh-huh.

Live.

Period.

[girl singing] ♪ Love ♪ ♪ Never knew what I was missing, ♪ ♪ but I knew once we start kissing, ♪ ♪ I found you.

♪ [cheers and applause] Early on at SOLHOT, when you work specifically with black girls, and you working predominantly with black women, sometimes it is useful to unlearn some things that we learned growing up about black womanhood, so I don't remember how I introduced it or what, but I knew that, okay, something was stopping us from getting to the full celebration, and it was this idea of like, shut up, be quiet.

[girls chanting] We got the love.

[cheers and applause] ...Black girls are too loud to be told quiet down .

and she said Excuse me ?

What?

I said no, no.

We not going to tell them to be quiet.

We're trying to get this volume up .

She was like Oh, man .

What have I got myself into?

♪ (girl singing) Thou shalt not hurt ♪ ♪ Hurt...Hurt ♪ ♪ Thou shalt always ♪ ♪ Help the poor.

Help the poor ♪ ♪ Thou shalt all read ♪ ♪ The Deed...The Deed ♪ ♪ Thou shalt not be ♪ ♪ Tacky...Tacky ♪ ♪ Thou shalt not wear ♪ ♪ Fake shoes...Fake shoes ♪ ♪ And every day we rock them ♪ ♪ Ponytails to the side and back ♪ ♪ And sometimes flat iron board ♪ ♪ That's beauty.

♪ ♪ (girl rapping) ♪ The idea of even thinking about loudness, that loudness doesn't necessarily have to come from sound.

That loudness can come in terms of I'm coming as I am and we're already seen as too much.

I was just sitting out listening to the young girls this morning talk about their experiences in school.

Eleven, twelve year old girls, talking together, black girls, about how so many laws and restrictions keep them from wearing their hair in China balls or braids or how they, at eleven, feel judged by their body, not by their mind, as soon as they come through the door.

>> I don't like the fact that we can't wear leggings to school, but when some like Caucasian girl wear them, it's not a problem, but when us black girls wear 'em, we have to get sent home, or we have to put something else on.

How a teacher will make a decision based on who has said what, not what has been said.

Eleven!

So this starts early in our community, and yet there's no conversation happening about it, that -- that young people, our young people, are being judged by the way they look or the way they talk or because they want to dance a little bit or they have a song in their head and this kind of thing.

We need to be involved with them on all levels, so that we applaud them, and we also know that we are them and they are us, and so the continuum, there's no break in that.

There's no intergenerational conversation where they don't feel seen or heard.

They need to know that somebody has their back.

They need to know that the community stands with them, not against them, and that's something that I know happens when SOLHOT comes to town.

I get fed -- I am a Black Girl Genius, but I -- I say that out of SOLHOT, you know, because we were taught in the South to be modest.

I'm slowly leaving all the modesty behind, because as Dr. Maya Angelou taught us, modesty is a lie.

You are what you are, and so when I can say to a room full of black girls, you are star shine, you are moonshine, you are all the shines in the world, and I see them lift and recognize that they are, that's my -- let me do that for the rest of my life.

Call on me to do that because I live in a world where that is not happening, where I see so many black girls being left behind, so many 64,000 black girls being missing in all kinds of concepts and situations.

So whatever my life is about, or whatever applause or reward or whatever happens to me, I'm bringing SOLHOT with me, because I am SOLHOT.

>> SOLHOT is something that you bring with you, and the way that it grows and expands, we were talking about what the home is, a home girl.

Because Nikki called us here, we are now here, and so SOLHOT is Columbia, South Carolina.

>> I take a beginner's mind to it, so as I am, you know, driving around, walking the streets, asking the trees what they remember about black girlhood, you know, in 1800, in 1520, before that even, what was black girlhood like here?

I'm really just humbled and honored to now also know, in some very small way, this place is home.

>> We have to create those spaces.

That's why we're here now, because that room filled with forty young black girls, would not happen on its own.

What you see happening in that room right now, is just the beginning, because you know they're going to hold on to what they are feeling and what they're saying to each other long after this day is over.

You have to put in the time and bring the sweet army necessary to do it, and that's what we're doing.

That's how we change the game.

>> Honey ain't got nothin' on you, cuz you're sweeter.

>> Aisha, why do you think black girls deserve celebration?

<Aisha> I think black girls deserve celebration because black girls are from the future, and if we want to learn how to live and be free and have pleasure with it, then we need to listen and look at y'all.

[applause] >> This is why we celebrate, because even amongst the horror, the tragedy that is, that we do not want and did not ask for, we -- and I'm recalling the words that Abbey Lincoln said 'still trust life for life.'

>> Is what SOLHOT does, it gives them language, and reminds them that they're alive, and that they have choices, and they can hold on to each other and count on each other.

The larger world doesn't always do that.

If you do SOLHOT, you know that you're not alone.

>> I feel like with the girls, like everywhere we go, even today they're like we need a center , like there's nothing to do.

So yeah... <Interviewer> Travelling, brick and mortar.

>> Right, yes.

>> Travelling brick and mortar.

Yeah, it's funny, the first image that came to mind, I was thinking about dandelions, which is not necessarily our favorite flowers, but you know dandelions are a type of flower that they're really good about being everywhere.

They're really good about growing in places that you don't think that they should be.

They're really good about surviving on the most -- with very little soil, with very little place to take root, you know, in the snow, and I think something about the ability to see SOLHOT in all of these different places is what most readily comes to mind to me because there are generations at this point, and there are iterations that already do exist, and so I just would imagine that continuing to spread in ways that we might not even be able to imagine at this moment.

>> The sunlight that is in this room, that you then swallow whole, follows you.

♪ (girl singing Galaxy ) ♪ ♪ We're going far away, so follow me.

♪ ♪ We need a new language so ooh ta ta da be.

♪ ♪ We're going far away, so follow me.

♪ ♪ We need a new language so ooh ta ta da be.

♪ ♪ Follow me, let's cruise this galactic vibrancy ♪ ♪ Follow me, shine on me ♪ ♪ Wholefully Wholefully ♪ ♪ Wholefully holy Wholefully holy ♪ ♪ Wholefully holy ♪ ♪ I am a constellation of black girl love ♪ ♪ Constellation Constellation ♪ ♪ Constellation of black girl love ♪ ♪ Stretching Stretching ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ I go non-stop ♪ ♪ SOLHOT, SOLHOT, SOLHOT, SOLHOT ♪ ♪ Working and playing ♪ ♪ For a taste of taking up South Carolina space ♪ ♪ Spin Black girl spin You can't step on my toes ♪ ♪ You can't win this race alone ♪ ♪ You can't break the cycle Without love homegrown ♪