Conversation in Community with Professor Ella Bell
We had the pleasure of closing out the month of July at our virtual event, Let's Talk: Conversation in Community, with the dynamic and inspiring Ella Bell.
Professor Bell is an author and a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Duke University who has studied and invested in women’s workplace identity and progress for the past 30+ years. Ms. Bell has received many awards and accolades for her research and groundbreaking book, co-authored with Stella Nkomo, Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity.
“We saw the need to be able to tell our stories. We saw a need to understand the journeys because we knew they were different. We knew that Black women had a different road altogether.” - Ella Bell
We reached out to Ms. Bell when we learned that the supreme court made a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. While we didn’t have a previous relationship, we had been awaiting an opportunity to host and learn from Ms. Bell. We understood the importance of supporting our community to connect the dots between this unprecedented legislative decision and the patterns we might see in the daily work experiences of Black women. Understanding that workplaces do not exist separately from our individual lives and collective society, our Founder, Precious Stroud, knew we needed a space to make sense of the Roe decision. And she knew that Ms. Bell could help us make sense of the direct and indirect impacts we’ll continue to feel in our daily lives as a result of this historic news.
Our time with Ms. Bell was a follow-up to our late June Conversation in Community event, where we hosted women to hear their peers’ raw feelings about the regressive supreme court decision; express whatever they needed to express; and design a way forward. As our understanding of the implications and concern about the impacts of the decision evolved, we wanted to hold space to continue to unpack the various ways we might feel impacted by all that's happening economically, socially, and politically. Ms. Bell generously shared with our team and over 40 members from our community in a Q&A-style presentation. She offered her time, expertise, and wisdom in service of our learning and healing, and for that we are grateful.
Having elevated and affirmed many truths that are fundamental to the work we do, but that we don’t always get to hear reflected back to us, Ms. Bell’s words inspired us and re-energized us. She reinforced our understanding that Black women alone will not change our circumstances, but that all women must work together across different identities to shift culture. We walked away feeling motivated, with many notes in hand for reflection.
Perhaps most importantly for us, Ms. Bell elevated the vital importance of developing and maintaining a strong sense of cultural identity—which is also a key early pillar of BlackFemaleProject work. While speaking about young Black people, Ms. Bell emphasized, “They need to understand our history, they need to understand that they're not the first ones, that there's a long legacy of African American brilliance and resilience.”
For those of you who attended, thank you for bringing your essence and questions into the space. For those who were unable to attend, please know that we held space for you and we look forward to inviting you to an upcoming event soon.