Keep Black Love Alive: Black Women Defining a Healthy 21st Century is a four-part national forum and a call to action to strengthen our public health infrastructure and advance the health and well-being of Black communities nationwide. The first (in-person and virtual) forum will take place on Thursday, June 23, 2022 from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at The High Museum of Art - Hill Auditorium located at 1280 Peachtree Street NE Atlanta, GA 30309. Admission is free.

“Harriet Washington helps us understand that health disparities are the civil rights issue of the 21st century. It is not black hats vs white hats. Her insight is foundational - absolutely essential for those of us creating the conditions of intergenerational well-being.” says Abeni Bloodworth, co-founder, writer, and artist-activist, chromatic black™.

The Keep Black Love Alive forum is an invitation to join a national campaign powered by Black women leaders, their allies and friends across the country to combat truth decay, misinformation and disinformation, and medical distrust. Information learned in the forum will be used by movement leaders to inform a national advocacy agenda. This policy agenda will further new ways of transforming our systems with racial equity and intergenerational well-being at the center.

“Since the 1970s, the national women’s studies movement has been one of the most transformative interdisciplinary projects in higher education, and Spelman has been at the forefront of that movement,” said Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center. “We are excited to join this new generation of voices for a conversation about the future of gender equity.”

Well-known influential thought leaders will speak at the forum, such as:

• Harriet A. Washington, medical ethicist and author of “Medical Apartheid,” winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.

• Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, director, Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center, and co-author "Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities.”

• Jewell Jackson McCabe, founding president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

• Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president, and chief executive officer, Morehouse School of Medicine

• Dr. Lisa M. Coleman, senior vice president, New York University’s Office Global inclusion & Strategy

Key solutions from this forum will be presented this fall during the week of the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference.

In addition, Dr. Helene D. Gayle, president-elect, Spelman College, will lead the charge in framing the equity agenda of the future for women. On the occasion of partnering with chromatic black™, we unite to recognize and pay tribute to the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, and its profound impact on women’s equity and empowerment for nearly three generations.

“Paraphrasing, Ida B. Wells people must know before they can act, and there is no better educator than the voice of legitimate press - The Fourth Estate – IDA reminds us that the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. It is in her spirit that Keep Black Love Alive gathers together in shared global leadership to power this movement”, says Jewell Jackson McCabe, chair, KBLA National Campaign.

Significantly, chromatic black™’s partnership with Spelman College’s Women’s Research and Resource Center grounds our movement in feminist scholarship to inform a shared analysis that promotes activism and impels social change.

“Complex problems require elegant solutions. Who better than us to architect a new world that is nt only human but life-affirming ,” Anglea Harmon, co-founder and an Emmy-nominated storyteller, filmmaker, and creative director chromatic black™.

Building on the momentum of this last year, we are joined by a vast array of leaders and organizations from the public, private and philanthropic sectors including RISE, We in the World, CDC Foundation, Health and Human Services, Health Equity Coalitions, Power Up Mississippi, NEXTGEN Alumni Leadership Council, Research America, Black Girls Do Bike, journalists, technologists, and creatives to inform a national well-being advocacy agenda which will be presented this Fall at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference.

Keep Black Love Alive is funded in part by RISE, convened by WE in the World, which seeks to build trust, strengthen civic capacity and transform systems. Visit Keep Black Love Alive to register for the forum.