During our 2024 Young Black Climate Leaders Dream Lab on July 30 - August 1 in Charleston, South Carolina, we celebrated in the sunshine with a sea of Black folx to honor our community, our collective ancestors, and centered Black liberation. We gathered with over 50 of our beloved YBCL community members to welcome the incoming 2025 YBCL cohort and be in solidarity with YBCL alumni, mentors, advisory board members, and staff. Listening to the input from our YBCL community and CI staff, South Carolina was chosen as the location for this Dream Lab based on its rich and long history as a place for resistance, reclamation, and self-determination for Africans, African Americans, and Black people.
As many know, it is estimated that over 40% of Africans, as a part of the Maafa, were ushered into the United States through Charleston. Immense wealth was created on the backs of many of our ancestors by cultivating rice, indigo, tobacco, and cotton. Despite the horrible conditions they were subjected to, they built communities, healed themselves, resisted, and dreamed and hoped seven-plus generations forward. Many freed themselves and others. Others engaged in planning and attempting revolts and rebellions for liberation and resistance, which occurred from the hauls of the ships to the shores and inland. From The Stono Rebellion, Denmark Vessey, Gullah Jack, Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River raid, and countless others. South Carolina, in particular, played a pivotal role in our freedom from the first freed schools for Black folx and as a powerful hub for resistance during chattel slavery, reconstruction, and the civil rights movement to today. Holding tight to their culture and ways of being from the Gullah Geechee community to other Black communities that have formed and found a way forward. We continue to rise!
This year's theme was Dreaming While Black: Healing, Self-Determination, Power & Liberation. We started our convening in the historic district of Charleston with a welcome reception at the International African American Museum (IAAM). We were welcomed by an African drum and dance procession followed by a land, labor acknowledgment, and libation to open the way. Attendees then got a surprise message from Don Cheadle, expressing his belief in the work and in the YBCL community to get it done. The rest of the night was fueled by down-home food and museum exhibits telling our stories of greatness, resistance, freedom, and liberation. The rest of the Dream Lab was filled with intentional programming with thought-provoking sessions and panels, a community dinner, a community environmental justice off-site, and a soul-stirring unity circle and Harambee call.
At the heart of the Dream Lab was a deep commitment to wellness. To uphold our dedication to the well-being of our community, we provided on-site culturally concordant care, mental health support, and yoga. This event was a labor of love, and we hope all felt the care and consideration we put into every aspect.
In the spirit of Sankofa and Ubuntu, until the next time!
Please view and share Don Cheadle’s YBCL video with your networks!
