In this blog post, I am encouraging you to support a retreat for Women of Color...even if you are not a Woman of Color yourself. First, I need to tell you a little bit about what this kind of experience can mean and why it's important. 

Tina Mabry never set out to become your conventional Hollywood blockbuster director – nor is she trying to be.

Yet, with her nationally acclaimed feature film Mississippi Damned – a true-to-life drama about a black family struggling with poverty, alcoholism, homophobia and racism in the rural south – the filmmaker is making huge strides in bringing independent black queer cinema to the masses.

There is a tradition in the African-American community (and some others) known as "Testifying." When you have found the answer, you are expected to share it with the community – to tell the story of your personal journey from faithless to faithful, from sick to healed or from oppression to freedom.

W.E.B. Dubois is recognized as one the great African-American authors of all time. In 1903, he published a book entitled “The Souls of Black Folks.” The book contained essays on race written by Dubois, and drew from his personal experiences being African-American during that time period.