BlackFemaleProject Voices: Lisa Durden

When you have young girls that can see that this is different for me than them. Then you can now start talking about legacy.

I had no legacy. Nobody can pick the phone up and say give my daughter an internship because I have built this.... Leg up, we talk about a leg up, you need someone to give you the leg up. So when these young girls come out the box with this attitude and they have their own and their own resources and their own community and their own world and their own power, then they can pick up the phone and call the other girl and say, oh I'm sending my daughter over for X. Oh! my daughter can do Y or Z and then you can build up.

We can't keep looking for the white males to give us an inroad to their world, that's their club. We need our own club. And we need to be the boss of the club. I'm the president of the club and I'm choosing to let you in. You ain't getting in that other club.

So it's about legacy. Once you have legacy, you have ongoing success for generations to come. That's how you create a community of people who are thriving. And that could be Black women, it could be Black people, it could be Black men, it could be gays. It could speak to any group. But when these groups know that they have to do this, that's how they're powerful. That's what I want to see these young girls do. And the thing I like about it is they can. They have the access now that we didn't have. They have the ability to be able to do it. They just need to take the access and match it with the confidence. 'Cause without confidence, access matters a damn. Right?

-Lisa Durden
@lisadurden
www.lisadurden.com