2025 Black & Female: What is the Reality® A Weekend Celebration and Training Retreat
October 2-5, 2025
Black Women's Leadership in Building Inclusive Moments for Social Justice!
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In 1983, Lillie P. Allen asked, “What do you absolutely adore about yourself?” to a standing-room-only gathering of over 1,000 Black women and girls from all walks of life at the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues held at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.
Whether this will be your first Black & Female: What is the Reality?® event or you will be reconnecting with women from past events, join us this-coming October for a celebration, reunion, and training retreat for all people who identify as Black women and Black girls as we honor our legacies and current realities as community organizers, social change makers, movement builders and paradigm shifters. We are doing emergent, transformative work outside the history of oppression with creativity, play, and joy!
Join us in sharing, hearing, and celebrating our voices as Black women and Black girls!
Things in our lives start to shift the moment we take the opportunities we need to heal and to know ourselves. Attending events tailored specifically for Black women is a transformative experience. The intersectionality of race, gender, and sometimes other factors like socioeconomic status or sexual and/or romantic orientation results in unique challenges that are often overlooked in discussions of oppression and inequality.
Our intention for the weekend...
Together, we will share lessons learned in using the Be Present Empowerment Model® to explore how the daily experiences of race, gender, class, and power dynamics and “isms” affect us and our capacity to build authentic relationships across differences.
The Retreat is highly participatory and experiential, fun, and interactive. It integrates many learning styles and engages children, youth, and adults together in a shared learning process. You will also have an opportunity to share your artistry such as dance, spoken word, art, and song.
REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS
(You must set up an account and/or login to register. If you have any isssues with registration, please email us at info@bepresent.org.)
REGISTRATION FAQs
- Scroll to the bottom of this page to the Registration section.
- Enter your information and click Register or Submit Change (if some of your information is already populated in the registration form).
- Scroll down further to the Payment section.
- Click the Make a Payment button and proceed to pay. (NOTE: The Make a Payment button does not appear until you've registered for the event).
CHILD AND YOUTH REGISTRATION (Children Ages 4-12)
Children 3 years old and younger attend for free. The fee for youth ages 4-12 and full-time students is $400.
LOGISTICS
RETREAT LOCATION
Forrest Hills Resort in Dahlonega, Georgia
Space is limited to 75 participants. We encourage you to invite a friend and/or family member and register now to secure your spots.
LODGING
All rooms are double occupancy, unless you wish to have a single-occupancy room; If you require a single room, you must pay the additional $200 single-room fee upon registration to reserve the room. Once rooms have been assigned, no changes can be made on or before check-in day.
TRANSPORTATION
By Car: Please use your favorite GPS navigation tool to map your driving route. Please plan to arrive at Forrest Hills by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 2. Dinner will begin at 6:00 p.m.
By Air: Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Forrest Hills is a 1 ½ to 2 ½ hour drive north, depending on traffic. Please make flight arrangements so that you can arrive at Forrest Hills by 4:00 p.m. Please schedule your departure flight for 6:00 p.m. ET or after to allow you sufficient travel time to the ATL airport.
WEEKEND SCHEDULE AND INTENTION
We invite people who identify as Black women and Black girls who are already engaged in the work of Black women's leadership, as well as those who are not and would like to learn more about the initiative, to join Lillie Allen and others as we meet to share our realities as Black women and Black girls.
The Agenda for the weekend is You! The motto is: "It's only the beginning, the best is yet to come, we know where we are going, we know where we come from..." We rarely take time out to rest, reflect, and love on ourselves and each other--this retreat is that time!
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2
- Creating a sacred container for the work and play we will do together
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3
- Exploring how using the Be Present Empowerment Model® can affect positive change in our work, our families, and in our communities
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4
- Sharing lessons learned and stories, from this retreat or years of practice, about the impact of the Be Present Empowerment Model on ourselves and in our lives
- CELEBRATING OURSELVES
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5
- Closing Circle
- How do we put into practice what we've learned and experienced?
Be Present in the Circle and build upon your strength as a leader to:
- Examine Intersections between race, gender, class, age, ethnicity, religion, and sexual and/or romantic orientation, among others.
- Address impact of social inequalities on the mind, body, and spirit.
- Build mutual trust and sustain transformative learning, shared accountability, and joint action.
- Foster authentic relationships among people with different backgrounds, experiences, viewpoints, and values.
- Have fun, party, and CELEBRATE!
The Role of Black Women's and Girls' Leadership in Creating a Just World
Be Present is rooted in the vision and leadership of Black women and girls, beginning with Lillie P. Allen, who partnered with diverse people to create a movement for sustainable change that serves everyone in our communities.
Be Present's Black & Female Leadership work addresses both the lack of, and, too often, the distortion of the voices and visibility of Black women's leadership in the literature, historical record, and dialogue on social justice movement-building. It also highlights the process, as well as the achievements of using a collective leadership approach in creating a diverse national network of activists successfully moving social justice agendas in the U.S.
