For my birthday back in February, my cousin gifted me the book, A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics. I’d never heard it, but a few pages into the introduction, it felt like it was written for me (shoutout to author Juanita Tolliver and that fateful conversation she once had with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, which inspired the book). Not only do these two legendary figures represent a cultural intersection that seems intrinsic to my personhood (social justice, storytelling, and style), but the book explores an idea that has resonated deeply with me of late — this concept of “people-power.” This cultural framework is at the center of this dinner soiree that served as a fundraiser for Shirley Chisholm’s historic presidential campaign. With the likes of Huey P. Newton, Berry Gordy, Flip Wilson, Goldie Hawn, and other famous figures gathered at Carroll’s exquisite and extravagant Hollywood home, the under documented evening of champagne, caviar, community and conversation propelled a political movement — elevating civil rights, feminism and a new era of community-centered resistance.
As we navigate a contemporary shift in our political landscape that is both visceral and violent in nature, Black women are oscillating between a posture of fighting the good fight and sitting our butts down. Just a few years removed from a global pandemic that severed many of our practices of community, the art of gathering, and the concept of third spaces, I believe many of us are craving a type of healing that only comes in the intimate presence of other Black people. I’m determined to create those safe spaces.
The daughter of the ultimate hostess (today’s TikTok DIY influencers have nothing on Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch), I inherited the art of hospitality. My mother truly was the Black Texan Martha Stewart. Before it was trendy, my mother was wallpapering the living room to match her dream tablescape for a dinner party; spray painting her Thanksgiving pumpkins gold to convert them to Christmas decor; and switching out the pine cones in the Christmas wreath with wild flowers to serve as the perfect front door decor for Easter.
I witnessed my mother’s innate ability to make everyone feel welcome in our home. We were always the gathering place for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Independence Day. Even as adults, all the orphan transplants in my hometown of Austin knew to show up to my parents’ house for the ultimate sense of family, community, and hospitality. But it wasn’t the special occasions or holidays that made my mother the queen of hosting. It was actually the seemingly inconsequential days when a friend would drop by unannounced, or the ladies’ tea she would put together because a friend was having a hard time, or a community member had a need that she wanted to get resourced and in the right hands. She would host a lunch so that someone could share their idea in front of others. And she did more than put out a tray of snacks. She’d decoratively set a table with tea, whip up homemade shortbread, or toss up a delicious salad from whatever she found in the refrigerator, and greet everyone with a personal embrace of welcome.
There is also something innately grounded in liberation when Black people gather. Despite the efforts of colonialism, capitalism, and gentrification, we create space for joy, fellowship, and respite. During slavery, Sundays were sacred because it was more than a sabbath from the dehumanization of the fields; it offered the space to congregate freely. Even with limited resources, slaves shared food, made music, and demonstrated hospitality. And we’ve adopted and adapted this cultural practice in every era, from the dinner salons of the Harlem Renaissance to the Chitlin’ Circuit and the Green Book created during Jim Crow. The act of hospitality is a practice of rest, reprieve, and community repair.
And so, over the last year, I’ve been exploring the relational connection of food, fellowship, and freedom. I recognize the power that can come from sitting down and breaking bread with one another detached from capitalism, the white gaze, the hyper-commercialization of experiences, and the pressures to curate our lives for Instagram. The question I’m asking myself and posing to each of us this year is, “What innovation, what imagination, what inspired practices of community and liberation, could come from the practice of hospitality and intimate gathering?”
In the last few months, we’ve witnessed the powerful, euphoric impact of collective gathering. Remember the elation you felt after you and your friends screamed the lyrics of “Not Like Us” during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance (inevitably at the Super Bowl Party you put together with wings and wine just to watch the halftime show)? Or the collective discourse inspired after we all rolled up to see Sinners last month? There is power in abiding in the presence of another. As much as we have formed beautiful rituals and nurtured meaningful discourse online, actual cultural currency and even political power are born in IRL communion.
I sought to center this truth on the first Monday of May in response to the highly anticipated annual Met Gala. A gathering traditionally for celebrities, cultural elites and fashion’s biggest names, this year’s theme of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style (an homage to Black Dandyism), seemed to generate an invitation and inspiration beyond the usual social caste. The theme beckoned many of us to reflect, honor and explore all the ways Black people have contributed to the style lexicon of America, and more significantly, the ways we have used style as a practice of self-determination, social agency, cultural autonomy and political dissonance.
I had a deep desire to hold space to explore the practice of a stylized resistance, Black Dandyism, and aesthetics through the lens of the Black community. I looked to create an experience akin to a living room chat, inviting folks to come dressed in a LEWK to participate in and contribute to inspired political exploration and cultural exchange. So, I reached out to the owners of Rue Dix Brooklyn, a Senegalese restaurant (Cafe Rue Dix) and Black Diasporic clothing store (Marche Rue Dix) in the heart of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, committed to nurturing Black culture and community, to serve as both our runway and our living room for the evening.
Guests were greeted by archival magazines of Black style icons decoratively placed across the bar (including some old ESSENCE magazines), signature cocktails, and the option to grub on some Senegalese and Trini-inspired appetizers. There was something so sweet about witnessing Black folk watch our own ascend the steps of the storied Metropolitan Museum in attire paying homage to our roots, our radiance, our resilience, our resistance, our royalty. There was a visceral joy present in the restaurant, as folks got to enjoy this moment amongst Black community, in a space FUBU (for us, by us). After the red-carpet coverage concluded, guests were invited to walk next door (with cocktails in tow) to the store to chat about what we had just witnessed, but more importantly, what we might collectively activate through our own aesthetic-inspired styling, storytelling, and social-political resistance.
I facilitated a conversation amongst the experts I invited, including Faith Cummings, a style and cultural journalist, Jeff Karly, a creative director and professor at Parsons, and Dominique Norman, a writer and scholar at FIT and Marymount Manhattan College. My opening question to them was, “What is your first memory of acknowledging fashion as an expression of Black culture and resistance?” But in true salon tradition, I also posed questions to all those who had gathered that evening, interested in learning “How do you perceive the role of these embodied forms of protest, whether through attire or physical gestures? How might we amplify political messaging and foster cultural solidarity in public spaces through our dress?” The gems gleaned from the conversation were nothing short of inspired. Attendees expressed the importance of “unapologetic joy in the midst of political oppression.” And as guests idled around the store after the salon discussion, many found me to express their immense gratitude: “I so needed this moment. There was something so magical about getting to be with community for this historic event.”
Such visceral and emotional responses seemed on par given recent studies calling attention to what sociologists and psychologists have coined the “loneliness epidemic.” Folks are longing for connection, intimacy, and let’s be honest, reciprocal care and love. We’ve been isolated in our grief — the grief that surrounds the loss of time (largely due to COVID-19), the loss of political autonomy (largely due to the reality of our current dictatorship/oligarchy), and the loss of third spaces (largely due to gentrification and the depletion of Black economic agency in historic Black neighborhoods). The price of mass gentrification is more than overpriced coffee and an increase in rent. It’s a rejection of Black and Brown cultural currency, severing our ties to physical spaces and disrupting our natural rhythm of gathering, from the street corners and parks to our Black-owned neighborhood eateries and bars. RIP to all the block parties and Black-owned bars being shut down because of noise complaints from new neighbors and gentrifiers.
Perhaps this moment is inviting us to recall and refine the rhythm of hospitality and home-grown gathering. As much as I enjoy “being outside,” I sincerely believe in the beauty of intimate gatherings. And in response to the disruption of connection and the depletion of community connectivity, in 2025, I’ve made a commitment to open my home to serve as a conduit for home-made food, holy hospitality, and perhaps collective healing. That’s come in many forms over the last four months, each special, each needed, each transformative.
In January, two of my dearest friends in New York and I made the commitment to gather monthly, at one another’s home, on rotation. These home-baked dinners have become a space of life chats, encouragement, therapy, and an affirmation of womanhood in all its many forms. A space to share joyful anticipation and nerves, as one of us prepares for first-time motherhood. A space for us to talk about dating in New York and the fatigue of social justice work in this political climate. We usually end the night exchanging clothes, styling one another for upcoming events that month, and sharing our latest skin care routines. Over the last few months of holding this gathering, I have realized the sanctity, the blessing, the beauty in honoring these two friendships, these two bodies, these two hearts, and these two evolving life stories.
Another Sunday ritual that has emerged from this cultural paradigm is a brunch gathering for a group of Black faith-led women. This one happened so organically. I was having lunch with a new friend who, like me, had moved to New York last year, and she was lamenting that while New York had offered her endless energy and surrounded her with inspirational people, she was craving a community that was grounded in faith and informed by a walk with God. It got me thinking that for many of us, particularly those of us unpartnered, navigating our spiritual practice in isolation was not only antithetical to how faith is meant to be lived out, but profoundly lonely. So, I reached out to two of the ladies I had been attending church with over the last six months and asked if they’d be available for brunch. Then each woman invited one friend. A gathering for four quickly turned into a gathering for eight. One Sunday in March, we met up again at a Black woman-owned restaurant for brunch after our respective services. In a refreshing exchange of tone, our conversation at the table was less about “Who are you?” or “What do you do?” And instead, prioritized questions like, “How are you?” and “What are you asking God for in this season?” It was refreshing, reviving, and revolutionary.
This re-commitment to deepen my practice of community and collective care hospitality has been healing. It’s been a reminder that, unlike what our algorithms tell us, community is not a commodity or a consumer good. Community and the art of neighborliness exist in the unexpected connections, laughs, kismet moments, juicy bites of homemade Brussels sprouts, sweet sips of mocktails, and hugs of welcome and see you laters. Community must be nurtured and sometimes nourished over a plate of sweet potato sliders on your favorite Anthropologie terracotta plates. The tradition of hospitality and the practice of hosting is what gives way to sustained community, transcending the performance of entertainment, to foster reciprocal, divine, necessary relationships.
This isn’t a knock to content creators who’ve made a living off extravagant party planning and highly curated aesthetic images, but it honestly doesn’t take a month’s rent or bougie purchases to foster moments of connection in our spaces. What is required is intention, authenticity, vision, and love for people. In fact, the most magical experiences typically come when you’ve focused less on premium materials and more on personal moments. I’m always asking myself, what experience am I trying to foster? What is the feeling or vibe I want to cultivate? What do I want people to walk away with when in my presence? Perhaps I love hosting so much because it is in essence storytelling. It’s a commitment to honor our individual stories and needs, while nurturing a new, freer collective story.
So, you see, it’s more than the chance to use your good china or sport a cute brunch fit. The art of hospitality, the invitation to neighbor, is in actuality an investment in radical care, spiritual healing, and Black liberation.
