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Hi Reader,

Three years ago, I put All the Black Girls Are Activists into the world. Tomorrow, July 28th, we’re gathering on my Patreon for the anniversary lecture and Q&A, and before we get there, I want to tell you what these three years have actually done to me.

I feel quieter.

Not smaller. Definitely not silent. Just… Quieter. I have less to prove, and that’s a very specific kind of freedom. When I was younger, I used to think revolution had to be loud and violent and muchy, all the way in your face, all the time. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe in the micro and the macro, language I got from adrienne maree brown’s emergent strategy, the idea that what happens in the small and particular ripples out into the large and collective. All the Black Girls Are Activists didn’t sell a million copies. It’s in the hands of close to eighty thousand people, and I won’t pretend all eighty thousand have read it. Say ten percent did. That’s eight thousand people living differently because of something I wrote. And if it had been eight hundred, or eighty, or eight, the math wouldn’t change what I know to be true: something happens in the quiet that changes the whole.

So much of what I’m quieter about now is my own body. I’m in pursuit of my body still, but the pursuit doesn’t look like it used to. It’s not a thirst trap, though I do love a good thirst trap. It’s that I hear my body faster now. It tells me this offering, I receive, or this offering, I do not, and I listen. These gray hairs, these skin blemishes, this yearning, I can say all of it out loud, usually to myself or in prayer, without it needing to be loud. Sometimes I don’t even have to say anything. You can just see it in my shoulders. I’ll be in the comments telling people, focus on what I’m saying and not on the fact that my arms are fleek tf (lol), and that in itself is unashamedness. Quieter unashamedness is still unashamedness.

This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in loudness. I wrote a whole chapter on it because I do. But loudness isn’t the only register revolution comes in, and getting quieter over these three years taught me that. I had a conversation this morning about bonnets in public, and here’s my honest position: I don’t have a problem with it. It might not be my personal choice, but everything is ghetto until proven fashionable (Naeresha Willis, 2016). What I’ve stopped doing is making public proclamations about it one way or the other, because I know respectability politics won’t save us, and I know whatever is true about it will only get resolved in intimate community, not in a comment section. That’s a quieter reality than any public stance could ever be.

The deepest part of this, though, is my ancestors.

In pursuit of my ancestors and in pursuit of authority used to be two separate chapters in my mind, and now they’re one conversation. The quieter I got, the more I could actually listen, and the more I listened, the more I heard from my ancestors, from my own spirit. I can present as very Christian to people who’ve known me a long time, and I know it makes my family uncomfortable when I talk publicly about my faith as an initiated priest, using language I got from Chelsea VonChazz around Baptist hoodoo, ancestral technology, ancestral veneration. I can say Jesus is my way to God without believing anymore that Jesus is the only way. There’s nothing wrong with saying any of that out loud. But being in pursuit of my ancestors and my own authority these last three years hasn’t made me louder about defending it. It’s made me quieter, because I don’t need anyone’s affirmation in a way that maybe I used to subconsciously feel like I did. I’ve heard from my ancestors directly. There isn’t going to be a back and forth about it, not because I’m avoiding the conversation, but because I already know, factually, that whatever they said/revealed is true and I just don’t need to ever turn up with ANYBODY about that kind of knowing.

They affirm me. I believe it. That’s settled.

And all of this, the quiet, the body, the ancestors, the bonnets, the loudness I still believe in, it’s really just leading up to us having a deeper conversation about sovereignty. Sovereignty is where we’re headed. That’s what Soft Sacred Sovereign (my substack blog) has always been about.

Tomorrow, July 28th, we’re marking three years of All the Black Girls Are Activists with a live lecture and Q&A. I don’t say this from arrogance, but I know this text matters to the canon, not just because it introduced the fourth wave of womanism, but because it gave us language to finally take a deep inhale and exhale around things we haven’t historically had room to sit with. We’ll keep having these conversations into year four, year five, and we’ll keep learning what this text taught us as we go.

To join the live lecture and Q&A tomorrow, subscribe at any tier; the lowest tier is four dollars. Your subscription supports this work and gets you in the room with us.

See you there! - ebonyjanice

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If you’re reading this in your inbox and not just on the Substack, I want you to know why I’m sharing it with you here too. I believe part of why you’re subscribed to my personal newsletter is because you’re also in pursuit of a soft, sacred, sovereign life. So am I. Let’s keep going.
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Read this article by Be Well Sis on our conversation about rest as radical resistance, ancestral veneration and more. Watch and listen below.

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EbonyJanice Moore - Bold Journey Magazine

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EbonyJanice Moore is a Hip Hop Womanist, scholar-priestess, sovereignty mentor, and revolutionary dreamer. With a mind shaped by Cultural Anthropology and Political Science, and a heart anchored in spirit, love, and liberation, she writes, teaches, and dreams Black women free. Founder of Emma’s Legacy and author of All The Black Girls Are Activists, Sacred Text For Black Folks Soul, and her forthcoming book Real Soft Girl Shit, she blends ancestral wisdom, womanist theology, and cultural commentary with the audacity of a spoiled little bitty baby who knows she’s worthy. Her work lives at the altar of justice, joy, softness, and fantastic Black futures.

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Email: info@thefreepeopleproject.com