Black Girl Summer 2026 takes place during a milestone year for The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects. The gathering will serve as both celebration and grounding for our 10-year anniversary.
We’re planning for the summer to include:
• A one- to two-day convening
• Storytelling and cultural documentation
• Alumnae reconnection and community celebration
At the center of it all is the same commitment we have always held: care, dignity and possibility.
Who We Are
Black Girl Summer is rooted in a Southern Black feminist tradition that understands leadership as collective, care as relational and joy as a practice of survival and freedom. For more than a decade, The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects has created spaces where Black girls and women gather to learn, reflect and imagine together. Our work centers dignity, belonging and the belief that people thrive when they feel seen and supported. Black Girl Summer is one of those spaces.
What Black Girl Summer Is
Black Girl Summer is a cultural mental health intervention disguised as joy. Each summer, we convene high school students, collegiate fellows, alumnae and community members for shared learning, creative expression and intergenerational connection. The experience is designed to support: Emotional well-being outside of clinical settings Identity development and leadership confidence Storytelling as meaning-making and power Belonging across generations Participants leave with more than information. They leave with language, relationships and a deeper sense of self.
Why This Moment Matters
In a time marked by social fragmentation, political uncertainty and increasing pressure on young people to perform resilience without support, Black Girl Summer offers something increasingly rare. A place to exhale. A place to be held. A place to imagine forward together.
Black Girl Summer exists because
people and institutions like YOU choose to invest in people and possibility. We invite you to join us in holding this space – not outside the work but as part of what makes it possible.