About Us
POWER IS SPACE AND TIME.
Our mission at The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects is to help build power. Not the kind of Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton described as the ability to “define phenomena” and make it “act in a desired manner.” It’s more intimate than that. I believe the genesis and fulfillment of power is space and time.
I’m talking space, literal space. Space to think, to express physically with dance, verbally with a loud voice, or without being told that one’s very being is offensive. It’s that, coupled with time.
Time to play, mourn and rejoice, time to figure things out, screw up and time to do nothing without being called lazy.
Black girls who have access to space and time have power. Powerful Black girls are autonomous, self-actualized, liberated Black girls. And perhaps those Black girls will define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner … if they so choose.
Natalie A. Collier
Founder, The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects
Our Story
When people ask what we do at The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects, one of the first answers I offer is “Leadership development for Black girls and women.” While this statement is true, it’s not quite full enough and demands follow up. Too often, people associate the work of leadership development with something far more impotent than we mean … than I’ve ever meant. For nearly a decade, I’ve had a clear vision about the way I thought work with and on behalf of Black girls and women should look: addressing the whole person—physical, emotional, spiritual and social wellbeing–all supported by an affirming sociopolitical structure.