Black Love is Joy Healing Hope
By Quinci Mann
Spring Symposium Day 2 invited us to sit deeper in the theme of this year’s gathering: Black Love is Joy, Healing, and Hope. Through a series of intimate and thought-provoking sessions, we explored how love—romantic, communal, and self-directed—can be a tool for resistance, restoration, and transformation.
We kicked things off with an interactive card play activity rooted in Shiree Teng’s Black Love is Liberation framework. Many in the room remembered Shiree from last year’s Symposium, where she served as a featured speaker. This year, her presence was just as powerful—this time through the healing medium of her card deck, co-created with her team.
The cards prompted us to reflect, share, and unearth our experiences with trauma, healing, and liberation. In small groups, we sat in a circle of trust and vulnerability, holding space for one another’s truths. It was playful, soulful, and unexpectedly cathartic— reminding us that joy is also a practice of liberation.
Dr. Shawn Ginwright and Nedra Ginwright—a powerhouse couple doing transformative work at the intersection of education, healing, and Black partnership – led a moving fireside chat. They invited us into their world, sharing deeply about what it means to be in loving community and long-term partnership while leading change in the world. They spoke about the pressures of doing “the work” and how tending to love—both self-love and romantic love—is part of that work, not separate from it.
Their conversation touched on themes of intergenerational wisdom, personal growth, and the patience required to love someone who’s still becoming. Through their stories, they modeled the beauty of evolving together over time—and the radical joy that comes with choosing each other again and again, year after year.
In the Q&A that followed, participants asked vulnerable questions about maintaining individuality inside of partnership, parenting with intention, and the daily choices that build Black love. The Ginwrights reminded us that no one person can be everything—and that healthy love is not about perfection, but presence.
Our CEO Chris Chatmon offered final reflections and cast a bold vision for where we’re headed. He lifted up our long-term strategy, shared Kingmakers’ updates, and grounded us once more in our Theory of Action. To close we invited participants to write down a personal commitment they take home with them—a seed of joy, healing, or hope they’re planting for the journey ahead.
It was a conference of deep affirmation and connection. A space where love was not just spoken of, but practiced—in real time, in real relationships, in real community.
