Our Story

About Us

POWER IS SPACE AND TIME.

Our mission at The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects is to help build power. Not the kind of Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton described as the ability to “define phenomena” and make it “act in a desired manner.” It’s more intimate than that. I believe the genesis and fulfillment of power is space and time.

I’m talking space, literal space. Space to think, to express physically with dance, verbally with a loud voice, or without being told that one’s very being is offensive. It’s that, coupled with time.

Time to play, mourn and rejoice, time to figure things out, screw up and time to do nothing without being called lazy.

Black girls who have access to space and time have power. Powerful Black girls are autonomous, self-actualized, liberated Black girls. And perhaps those Black girls will define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner … if they so choose.

Natalie A. Collier

Founder, The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects

Young Black woman with glasses smiling against a rainbow-striped background, wearing a Lighthouse-branded shirt

When people ask what we do at The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects, one of the first answers I offer is “Leadership development for Black girls and women.” While this statement is true, it’s not quite full enough and demands follow up. Too often, people associate the work of leadership development with something far more impotent than we mean … than I’ve ever meant. For nearly a decade, I’ve had a clear vision about the way I thought work with and on behalf of Black girls and women should look: addressing the whole person—physical, emotional, spiritual and social wellbeing–all supported by an affirming sociopolitical structure.

–Natalie A. Collier

Organizational Timeline

FOUNDATION & FORMATION

2015

While leading leadership development work for young women across the Black Belt of Alabama, Southwest Georgia, and Mississippi, it became increasingly clear that meaningful support required engagement not only with participants, but also with families, caregivers, and the broader conditions shaping their lives.

Following a site visit, a foundation partner invested in Natalie A. Collier’s leadership through a fellowship created specifically to support her and the development of a broader organizational vision. That investment included an initial $300,000 commitment to begin building the infrastructure for what would become The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects.

From its earliest stages, the organization’s philosophy was shaped by the belief that “power is space and time.”

Building Infrastructure for a Broader Response

The Southern Black Feminist Leadership Framework

At The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects, we believe leadership isn’t conferred by title, charisma or proximity to power. Leadership is a practice of becoming, rooted in reflection, responsibility and the courage to act in service of something larger than oneself.

Our approach to leadership development is grounded in the traditions of Southern Black feminist organizing and shaped by the understanding that leadership isn’t merely about influence. It’s about how one understands one’s self, relates to others, interprets the world and takes responsibility for changing it.

We develop leaders through a framework that centers seven interconnected practices.

This model reflects how leadership develops over time and contributes to broader change.

Each stage draws on the capacities outlined in the Southern Black Feminist Leadership Framework. While the framework names distinct practices such as self-knowledge, historical memory, power analysis and institution building, this visual illustrates how those capacities tend to emerge and deepen in relationship to one another.

Power begins with space and time. Leadership grows from self-knowledge and becomes meaningful when it serves community.