Collective Power Is How Black Women Change Systems

I didn’t set out to build an organization. I set out to build a container, a place sturdy enough to hold the truth of Black women’s lives, bold enough to challenge broken systems, and expansive enough to remind us that we are stronger together than we will ever be apart.

The California Black Women’s Collective was born from a simple but radical premise. Black women do not lack talent, insight, or leadership. What we have too often lacked is infrastructure. Systems were not designed to see us fully, let alone invest in us collectively. So I became a community architect, intentionally designing spaces where Black women could bring their whole selves, their lived experience, their expertise, and their power, without having to shrink or compete for oxygen.

As Black women, we are frequently encouraged, subtly and overtly, to organize around our differences. Geography. Profession. Politics. Class. Age. But I have seen again and again that our differences are not liabilities. They are assets when held within a shared framework of purpose and care. Collective power does not require uniformity. It requires alignment. It requires trust. It requires the courage to believe that my liberation is bound up in yours, even when our paths look different.

Building collectives is not about convening people in a room and hoping magic happens. It is systems work. It is relationship work. It is narrative work. It means translating individual stories into shared data, shared demands, and shared strategies that decision makers cannot ignore. It means creating feedback loops between community wisdom and policy action. It means ensuring that those most impacted are not just consulted, but positioned as architects of the solutions.

I have learned that real system change does not move at the speed of outrage. It moves at the speed of trust. Collectives allow us to move beyond reaction and into strategy. They allow us to shift from being individually exceptional to being structurally powerful. When Black women organize together, we do not just respond to systems. We reshape them.

My role has never been to be the loudest voice in the room. It has been to build rooms where Black women’s voices echo, multiply, and carry weight. To design tables where there was once exclusion. To make visible what has long been rendered invisible. To remind us that our brilliance is not an anomaly. It is a constant.

I believe deeply that collective power is the most underutilized resource Black women have. When we build together with intention, rigor, and love, we do not just survive systems that were never built for us. We change them. And that is the quiet, steady power of community architecture.