Source: Penguin Random House / Penguin Random House
Today is National Letter Writing Day and to commemorate the often-overlooked observance, we caught up with Tamara Winfrey Harris, author of The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America, about her new book, Dear Black Girl: Letters From Your Sisters on Stepping Into Your Power, and the power of letter writing for healing Black women.
MN: Tell me a little about what started the Dear Black Girl Movement
Tamara: I was doing a workshop with two dear friends of mine and it was going to be an inter-generational workshop for Black women and Black girls. There were going to be about fifteen girls on hand, and I just thought it would be nice if each of those girls could leave the workshop with a letter from a Black woman. So I went to social media and I just sent out a call on Facebook and just said, “Hey, friends, people who know me, can you just, could you just send a letter to a Black girl. Send it to me and, I’ll hand out.” So I issued that call. Next thing I know, the request goes viral, and instead of like twelve letters I ended up with more than fifty and they came from all over the world. I got a letter from Switzerland, got a letter from Canada. Somebody sent a letter and they sent like a stack of journals for girls.
