We’re back and headed to Hotlanta! Black Love, Inc. is thrilled to announce the return of its highly anticipated annual marquee event — the BLACK LOVE SUMMIT! As we celebrate our 6th year in Atlanta, we are dedicated to fostering love, unity, and growth as we connect with our Black Love fam! As we gear up to the big day, let’s look back to stories filled with special moments from Black Love Summit. Check out this article and then grab your early bird tickets!
Whenever I had a question as a child, the women who raised me told me to go find the answer. Not to sit on my hands and hope for the best, but to acknowledge what I needed, see what resources were around me, and do what I had to do to find an answer. That practice went far outside of school projects and book reports and actually bled into my life. As I evolved and expanded as a man, I recognized these larger questions that were driving me — what kind of man, husband, and (God willing) father do I aspire to be? Now, where can I find those answers? I can honestly say, I’ve been blessed to find those answers in community, and specifically, experiences like the Black Love Summit.
When I first sat down with my therapist, she said, “so what do you want to focus on in therapy?” Ultimately, I didn’t have a full answer to offer, but I did know that I wanted to patch up the holes in my vision for the future. Like when people ask you where you see yourself in 5, 10, or 20 years and it seems like the further out you go, the foggier the vision is. Oddly enough, I’d always been able to see myself very clearly as a father, but at the point that I sat on my therapist’s couch, I had no idea how to see myself as a husband. Was I interested in it? Yes. Did I have examples to turn to that would fill the gaps in my vision? Not necessarily. And that’s where my work began.
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Black Love itself was born from a place of radical love and vulnerability that I can find at the center of everything this community produces. Couples who bear their relationships in their entirety to our people in the hopes that we learn from their lows and are inspired by their highs. Vulnerably and selflessly retelling the most painful experiences they’ve shared and resurfacing some of the tensest feelings they may or may not have resolved, in an effort to replenish what is denied to far too many of us — a living illustration that our love can be joyous, enduring, and liberating. But, the same goal and the same vulnerability echoes through every article, podcast episode, and video regardless of the content because we understand that at the core of being a better husband, wife, daughter, etc. begins and ends with you. Your ability to love and receive love begins and ends with you, which is why I take every chance I can get to be surrounded by it.
Felicia & Karega Bailey, two souls who’ve bravely chosen each other for 18 years, sat at the Summit and spoke passionately about the belief that fuels their partnership and the same belief that led to the creation of Black Love — the idea that your love should sow a seed to grow something greater than you. “Love is more than romance, and romance is such a hard thing to participate in,” Karega shared, “but I believe that people who are fortunate enough to experience love together should be bountiful in the giving of their love.” The couple, both steeped in the public education system, recognized early that they wanted their love to carry the purpose of impacting those on the “fringes” of society. Reflecting on their own experiences with students in special education classrooms, mothers who’ve lost children to gun violence, and their own journey as angel parents forced the two to interrogate who society tells us is worthy of love and compassion when all we truly want is to be seen. In that process, they so powerfully describe how they came to understand that judgment in any form does not leave room for love, and that impacted their partnership as much as it impacted their growth as individuals. They had to reframe what love looked like to them and how that same judgment stood in the way of their own connection.
“How do we show up for each other, minus the judgment, no matter what the context is? How do we serve?” Karega asks. “Love makes itself known. It’s not about recognition or position, it’s literally about serving.”
This was where I personally found exactly what I needed from yet another Black Love space, putting words to things I could only sense. Love is one of the most excruciatingly vulnerable things to do because we’re trying to game out the conditions. How much of me is too much? If you knew my mistakes, my faults, my insecurities, would you still feel the same? And if you wouldn’t, am I ready for rejection that deep? It’s a constant practice, but the goal isn’t to strategize around your vulnerability and authenticity to keep those people close as much as it’s about accepting that the authentic love you give in earnest is enough for the right people.
In an affirmation Felicia shared from “SOL Affirmations,” the Baileys call us to focus less on what we might lose when we take the leap with vulnerability and instead focus on all that we have to gain from it.
“When we share our stories and are open about our feelings, we create room for compassion and connectedness. We create room for reverence. We create room for love.”
Romantically or not, love in itself should be a genuine act of service to others and not to your ego. Something that doesn’t have to be on Instagram or recognized by the masses in order to be valid. Love means showing up for people you love just because they reciprocate it and they deserve it. It means truly embodying love and not allowing others’ actions to diminish your capacity for it, just where you choose to place it. It’s challenging to expose parts of you to the sharp edges and hard surfaces of the world through love, and yet all the more necessary if you hope to find the people you’re meant to find. As a man committed to his own growth and evolution, acknowledging the gap was step one, and putting myself in the space for learning was step two. What I do with that learning? That’s step three.
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