(Chicago, Illinois, January 15, 2022)  Dr. Rhonda Sherrod, with her first book, delivers a stunning collection of essays addressing some of the trauma affecting Black communities.  From sexual trauma experienced by bewildered Black girls--and the potential lifelong after effects, including low self-esteem, damaged confidence, and perfectionism--to colorism, vicious stereotypes, gun violence in the community, and the collective grief felt after the loss of great figures like Fred Hampton and Harold Washington, Dr. Sherrod tackles topics rarely discussed. She also addresses the taboo topic of therapy and why it can be crucial to wellness. With the understanding that good health is more than the absence of illness, and with a desire to promote overall wellness--heart, mind, body, spirit, and soul--Dr. Sherrod, a psychologist and lawyer, also writes with arresting honesty about her own struggles after surviving childhood sexual abuse.  

A powerful and eclectic collection of essays, this book is about Black women and healing.  It covers the harm sustained as a result of various forms of physical and psychological violence, as well as the multiplicity of ways survivors then go on to commit acts of self-sabotage, which is often undergirded by a form of perfectionism that develops to compensate for the manner in which they feel damaged.  

Note: This is a website of ideas and information.  As such, some of the writings here are new and some are older...but all are relevant for today.

                    This site was relaunched on January 1, 2022!

"I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves.  We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't."  Audre Lorde, brilliant African American feminist writer

                      The Power of You

                                                                                             "I wish you power that equals your intelligence and

                                                           your strength.  I wish you success that equals your

talent and determination. And I wish you faith."

Dr. Betty Shabazz

Educator, Activist, and Wife of our 

"Black Shining Prince," Malcolm X

Too often the power Black women exude is denigrated and debased, but, really, who doesn't want to be powerful?  What intelligent person isn't trying to learn how to govern and discipline herself (or himself) enough to be able to tap into and harness her (or his) own intrinsic power?  The SHE project applauds the power of the Black woman's mind, body, spirit, and soul, because we could NEVER have survived as a people without the Black woman's mental and emotional strength, and without her intellectual firepower.  Sisters should not get slammed for being dynamic women of substance.  There is nothing incongruent with being feminine and strong.  (Study the beautiful, brilliant, and bold Ida B. Wells for an example.)

So, we are not about to allow something positive to be transformed into something negative because Black women possess it.*  Could Black people have survived slavery, Black Codes, convict lease, Jim Crow, crop lien, lynching, raping, police brutality, mob violence, and the destruction of Black towns and communities, as well as the insanity of today's continued racial problems, if the Black woman was silly, dim-witted, daffy, or weak?  Of course not!

No, at this site, we are concentrated on celebrating Black women's personal power, and helping her maximize and mobilize her brilliant potential to live the lives our foremothers envisioned for us -- happy, healthy, and whole.  We also want to encourage other people to understand the Black woman's historical importance and celebrate her.  Sisters have been maligned, defamed, and undermined so much in this society; so, we want you, Sister, to learn how to exercise self-compassion—as well as compassion toward other Black women.  We are also interested in the proper use of Black women's power in contemporary times.  Your personal power should be deployed to benefit you, your family, your community, your country (wherever you are in this world, Black woman) and the global community.

(*As an aside, how many times have we seen Black women's attributes denigrated until White women acquire the wherewiththall to display those very attributes, monetize them, and profit from them?  What should that tell us?) 

                                  Our Mission                   

The SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)® Project is designed to be educational, enlightening, edifying, uplifting, therapeutic, embracing, nourishing, empowering, informative, compassionate, and healing for Black women (and men, because we all know that what affects Black women all over the world affects Black men and children -- as well as other human beings on the planet).  

Black women have survived unspeakable tragedies and horrors and yet remain a beautiful, elegant force of nature - often working in everyone else's best interest and neglecting to take care of our own needs.  Let this be your weekly stop for encouragement, good information, and good interaction.  

In the meantime, we will continue to put together all kinds of seminars, workshops, symposia, and conferences under the SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)® banner.  

This website is also for others - men and women - who want to be uplifted and informed, too, for as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it:  "We are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny."  The more we know about each other, the better our capacity to respect, learn from, have compassion for, understand, and live with each other!

     Like water, Sisters, let this site be akin to an elixir:  

Drink it up!

 SISTER LOVE

 Means

Love and Support Yourself and Your Sister

"We know that we are beautiful," Langston Hughes

It is such a disgusting thing that this society tries to convince Black people that we are not worthy; and it is even more tragic that we continue to believe that noise, consciously or subconsciously.

Exert your personal power properly, so

YOU

can thrive and be both healthy AND happy!

And This We Know To Be True:

"Black women have long recognized the special circumstances of our lives in the United States:  the commonalities that we share with all women as well as the bonds that connect us to the men of our race.  We have also realized that the interactive oppressions that circumscribe our lives provide a distinctive context for Black womanhood."       

Deborah L. King, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, Dartmouth College

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