Sistas Rebuilding Sisterhood: Education, Identity & Our Future (March 2026)

Our Future: What Did We Lose — and What Did We Gain? is a 90-minute virtual conversation within the Sistas Rebuilding Sisterhood series, hosted by Conversations in Color and facilitated by Lana Reid.

As mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and caregivers, Black women have long carried responsibility not only for nurturing children, but for protecting their sense of identity, confidence, and possibility. This March 2026 conversation invites intergenerational reflection on Black education — past and present — and asks difficult, necessary questions about belonging, affirmation, and outcomes.

Drawing on lived experience rather than nostalgia, participants will explore what it meant for Black children to be educated in segregated schools by all-Black teachers, alongside the limitations those systems faced under structural racism. The conversation also considers how desegregation reshaped educational experiences — often expanding access while complicating cultural safety and expectation.

Conversation themes include:

• How Black teachers historically nurtured identity, discipline, and high expectations

• What was gained through desegregation — and what may have been lost

• How bias, tracking, and lowered expectations show up in today’s schools

• Why many students report thriving in HBCU environments

• The role of belonging, cultural affirmation, and community in academic success

Rather than arguing for a return to the past, this session centers clarity and forward-thinking: what elements of historically Black educational spaces are still needed — and how they can be advocated for today.

This conversation is part of Sistas Rebuilding Sisterhood, a monthly virtual gathering designed to foster honest dialogue among intergenerational Black women committed to shaping healthier futures for our communities.

Facilitated by Lana Reid, founder of Conversations in Color and creator and host of The Male Perspective, this session creates space for memory, critique, and vision — grounded in care for the generations coming after us.