Beloved Sisters,
As we stand at this peculiar intersection of history - tomorrow's inauguration sharing space with MLK Jr.'s celebration makes me want to look at the years between 1955 and 2025. The path from Montgomery to this moment isn't a straight line, but rather a spiral staircase we've climbed together, sometimes stumbling, always rising.
In 2017, while pink hats flooded streets, I wore a hospital gown. My body, seemingly healthy by all medical standards - the yoga-doing, kombucha-drinking vessel I inhabited - kept losing its breath. Before "I can't breathe" became a rallying cry, my lungs were already carrying the weight of what was coming. The doctors found nothing wrong physically, but my spirit knew. GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) became my new companion, a diagnosis that finally named what my body had been screaming in panic attack.
From a mental health facility's TV room, I watched the 2017 inauguration, not by choice but by circumstance. The weight of seeing sisters from another mister choose comfort over progress, choose familiar pain over uncertain hope - it took my breath again. And here we are, cycles later, watching similar choices play out with Kamala, revealing how some would rather repeat history's hardships because, for them, it wasn't that bad at all.
But sisters, let me tell you about Miss Dee. At 82, she sat with us at an event called "Sis I Was You," her voice clear as a bell when she spoke about her wish for young people to organize, to create gathering spaces. With pride, I shared our vision for Sisterhood Sit-In and Digital Kitchen. Her eyes lit up - she saw the connection between then and now, between lunch counters and laptop screens.
The blueprint exists, though it wasn't in our public school history books. Somewhere between KRS-One speaking truth and Biggie flexing Gucci socks, we lost sight of the raised fists that came before. But sisters, look at us now - creating digital spaces, coding new gathering places, turning my agoraphobia into innovation.
Even through the storms of 2024 - breaking my ankle, losing my father in October, marking the second anniversary of my grandfather's passing two days before Christmas, the painful severing of ties with my blood sister - I held onto you. Our digital sisterhood became my lifeline, proving that sacred spaces don't always need physical walls.
🎵 NEW RELEASE: "Kitchen Table Tactics" - A poem to you, sister!
JOIN US: Digital Kitchen Premiere
Tuesday, 7PM EST
Special Kitchen Blessing by Bree Nachelle
Featuring DaVonna May of It Girl GPT
Sisters, we've got an incredible lineup of guests coming who will remind us why our gathering matters now more than ever. As layoffs mount and spaces close, we're building our own tables, coding our own futures.
Because here's what I know for sure: Sisterhood was, is, and always will be the future. From lunch counters to launch codes, from Montgomery to metaverse - we carry each other forward.
In Digital Sisterhood,
Minista Jazz
P.S. As ML King Jr. said, "We cannot walk alone." And we musn't 'sit' alone either.
In 2025, we type together, code together, build together. Register now to be part of our live audience and let's make history together.
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