Black Girls Lead Too was born out of Imani’s experience of invisibility during her first year at an HBCU. She arrived expecting her education to reflect the legacy of her ancestors and the brilliance of her elders, but instead encountered the same curriculum violence that stereotypes and erases Black women and girls.

Though eager to lead, Imani often felt like an outsider in a place meant to feel like home. Even after joining clubs and organizations, she realized that having a title didn’t guarantee being heard. In response, a simple affirmation came to her: Black girls lead too. What began as words of self-encouragement soon evolved into a larger realization — the issues on her campus reflected the issues of her community and the world.

As Imani began sharing her idea to resist structural degradation, she found strength in community. She connected with other Black girls on her campus who shared similar experiences of feeling both hypervisible and invisible, carrying the weight of leadership, and searching for spaces that affirmed their worth. These conversations revealed a collective truth: if we can’t name our experiences, others will define them for us.

Imani began to ask, How does this free us? Her answer became the foundation of Black Girls Lead Too: identity, community, wellness, radical imagination, and the ownership of our stories.

Black Girls Lead Too emerged not just as an organization, but as a protest — that Black girls are not waiting for permission to lead, because we’ve always led, and our work has always shifted conditions globally, because we are the architects of now.