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According to the Office of Minority Health, almost four out of five African American women are overweight or obese. Even with the alarming statistics, Toni Carey and Ashley Hicks say they never thought that Black Girls Run!, which now consists of over 25,000 women and 67 BGR running groups across the country, would pick up the momentum that it has. The two started Black Girls Run! in 2009 to document and create support for their own personal experience and never thought it would create nationwide inspiration for black women to start running.

“One of the things that sparked this whole conversation was when I first started running, I called my mom and said, ‘Hey, I want to start running. I got these shoes, they are dope,’” Carey said to Black Enterprise. “and she says, ‘Black girls don’t run.’ Just like that. ‘It’s something white people do.’ ‘Really, mom? That’s racist,’ was my response.  She would say things like ‘your uterus is going to fall out,’ which is a myth, and that was why women couldn’t run marathons until the ‘60s. That all led to the creation of Black Girls Run!”

Carey and Hicks created an all-runners-everything website that includes product reviews, running group meet-up locations and runner spotlights. Their movement has over 30,000 “likes” on Facebook and more than 9,000 Twitter followers.

“Social media continues to be a big part, but I think when you are in your city and you see 30, 40 black women running through your neighborhood, everyone’s automatically like, ‘What is going on?’ That is not something you see every day,” Carey said. “That kind of still fuels the growth in people just being interested in what this running thing [movement] is all about. There are so many black women doing it. I want to say it’s a trend now. Hopefully, it’s a trend that continues.”

This September, the movement will pick up even more speed as the duo in partnership with AARP, hosts their first road race in Atlanta, Georgia.

“I always default to our tagline: ‘Preserve the Hot.’” Hicks said to Black Enterprise.  “That says so much about really preserving who you are from head to toe. A lot of times it’s making sure, like with black women, it’s ‘Oh, my hair has to look good right now.’ But really it is just preserving everything about you.”

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