justice for black girls AMBASSADORS PROGRAM
We believe in eNGAGING BLACK GIRLS AS THEORISTS OF THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE & architects of the world they deserve.
The Justice for Black Girls Ambassadors Program is the largest virtual social justice education space engaging Black girls ages 13–18 across the country in the academic, cultural, and policy work that centers Black girlhood. Rooted in Black feminist thought, the program creates liberated learning environments where Black girls are affirmed as cultural architects, organizers, researchers, and producers of knowledge.
Through the Black Girlhoods Curriculum, Ambassadors engage critical conversations around identity, safety, healing, advocacy, joy, and liberation while building lifelong sisterhood with Black girls across the nation. The program responds to the exclusionary and punitive conditions Black girls too often experience in schools and society by cultivating spaces grounded in belonging, care, intellectual exploration, and collective power.
The JBG Ambassadors Program combines culturally rooted curriculum, grassroots collaborations, academic partnerships, and leadership opportunities that allow Black girls to engage directly with universities, scholars, organizers, policymakers, and national organizations. Ambassadors also gain opportunities to explore microgrant funding for advocacy projects, serve as guest lecturers and conference presenters, and share their brilliance across diverse sectors nationally.
Most significantly, the program nurtures a generation of Black girls who understand their lived experiences as valuable forms of knowledge capable of shaping culture, policy, research, and social transformation. Ambassadors operationalize curriculum through their own language, creativity, and analysis—designing presentations, leading community conversations, and advocating for more just futures in their schools and communities.
Past presentations and advocacy projects have explored topics including “The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls,” “Colorism, Cultural Appropriation & Respectability,” and “Black Girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation.” Ultimately, the JBG Ambassadors Program positions Black girls not simply as participants in change, but as the theorists, innovators, and architects of the worlds they deserve
JBG ambassadors program HIGHLIGHTS:
Intergenerational keynote conversations during the JBG National Conference feature JBG Ambassadors alongside revolutionaries such as Nikki Giovanni and Angela Y. Davis, positioning ambassadors as co-architects of our future.
Partnership with Dr. Monique Couvson (award winning author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools) inaugural PUSHOUT Youth Cohort
University presentations across the country including: Spelman, UC Berkeley, NYU, Columbia, Harvard
Organization collaborations including: National Urban League, Girls for A Change, Me Too Movement, Girls for Gender Equity, NBJWI, The Children’s Partnership, EveryBlackGirl Inc., Black Girls Smile, Fund II Foundation
White House Roundtable for Girl Leaders
Digitally archived in Library of Congress under Protests Against Racism
2023-2025 ambassadors program offerings:
Black Girlhoods Course Overview:
Over the course of 5 weeks, Black girls convene to create a sacred learning community rooted in liberated Black girlhood. This community centers Black girls’ intersectional identities, honors their lived experience, and cultivates their ability to advocate against their abuse while advocating for spaces that center their liberation. Ambassadors respond by designing their own presentations and advocating within their communities to local stakeholders. This work centers Black girl innovation and allows students to operationalize curriculum in their own ways, using their own language, through their own creative expression. Namely, JBG Ambassadors have produced presentations on topics including but not limited to, “The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls”, “Colorism, Cultural Appropriation & Respectability” and “Black Girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation.” Ultimately this work positions Black girls as powerful civic leaders who are capable of dreaming and actualizing a more just world.
Course Logistics:
Program runs July 8th- August 7th, meets Tuesdays & Thursdays | Time 11 PST 2 EST
Who can apply?
All Black girls ages 13-18 (middle and high school)
2021-2022 ambassadors program offerings:
We’re excited to be relaunching our 2021 Black Girl Birth Work Program for Summer 2022.
We can’t wait to convene another cohort of Black girls prepared to offer their brilliance, love, and power to the birth work and reproductive justice space.
We believe that Black girls and youth belong in every conversation about birth justice. Our curriculum (taught by certified Black women experts) is designed to equip Black girls with the tools to become birth work advocates and leaders.
Course Overview:
This is a 5 week educational series exploring processes related to natural uninterrupted childbirth. Instruction will be rooted in decolonized African American ancestral wisdom and will include the history of midwifery in America, reflection questions, focus groups, and opportunities to apply this knowledge. Students can expect to gain foundational knowledge in prenatal, pregnancy, and postpartum anatomy, the rights of child-bearers, evidence - based comfort measures, and strategies to advocate for the holistic wellness of Black birthers, with special focus on teenage birthers.
Course Logistics:
Program runs July 11th- August 10th, meets Mondays & Wednesdays | Time TBA
Who can apply?
Current JBG Ambassadors | All Black girls ages 14-21
Course Instructors:
Bria Bailey, MS, MTM
Bria is a double mastered former senior clinical researcher, survivor, certifying Doula, and dancer. Bria has over 10 years of clinical experience working in diverse clinical settings. She is currently working as a UX researcher, Maternal Experience Designer, and Birthworker with aspirations of becoming a Homebirth Midwife. Through her own journey, she identifies as a Healer whose purpose is to evolve in her own healing so that she may heal others in her community and beyond. She is a native of Memphis, TN and resides in The Bay Area, CA.
Tanyze Hill (Mentoring Doula, Holistic Educator, Founder, Birth Manifesta LLC)
Tanzye, is an educator, advocate, and mentor committed to restoring the wholeness of individuals and communities by creating safe spaces and encouraging others to trust their voice. ”I believe Wombyn are the crux of the community and it is our responsibility to nurture and protect them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at all times. It is through them that all life passes, therefore, we must center their voices and choices and provide safety for the manifestation of all that they desire to birth."
2020- 2021 ambassadors program
Justice for Black Girls (JBG) endeavors to elevate the voices of Black girls as the experts and cultivate student activism through our Justice Ambassadors Program. Here we engage Black girls from all over the country in the academic and policy work that centers Black girlhood. The JBG Ambassadors Program also provides opportunities for Ambassadors to partner with grassroots organizations, higher learning institutions and leading activists, authors, and theorists whose work centers Black girls.
JBG recognizes education as liberation and endeavors to combat the universal suppression of Black girls’ experience and the miseducation of Black girlhood through our Black Girlhood curriculum entitled, 4LittleGirls in honor of 4 Black girls who lost their life due to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church September 15th 1963. This curriculum, launching publicly, will be made available to girls in school and authorized by liberation pedagogy for girls who are incarcerated or system involved.
Ultimately JBG is focused on equipping Black girls with tools not authorized by empowerment- focused on developing self help in the midst of structural degradation, but power- the agency to alter the systems that actively marginalize Black girlhood.
Topics include but not limited to: Intersectionality, Adultification, Incarceration, School to Confinement Pathways, Black girl autoethnography, Black Girl Safekeeping + Healing, Liberation
WHO CAN APPLY:
Black girls in the United States in grades 7-12
2020-2021 PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Dates: October 1st 2020- May 6th 2021
Monthly sessions (Every first Thursday of the month)
Time: 4:30PST/7:30EST
Applications close September 18th at 11:59pmEST. Please note that this is Eastern Standard Time. Accepted applicants will be notified during the last week of September.
summer PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Dates: July 7-August 4
Biweekly sessions (Tuesday + Thursday)
Applicants are currently closed. Accepted applicants will be notified between July 2nd-5th
Please follow us on instagram @justice4blackgirls to learn more about JBG and our receive updates regarding the program and our work!
Summer Program Highlights:
BLACK GIRL TALK SERIES featuring Dr. Monique W. Morris, Tarana Burke & Ree Botts
POP UP CLASSROOM SERIES: (1) The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girlhood, (2) Colorism, Cultural Appropriation, Respectability, (3) Black girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation
JBG Ambassadors serve as Guest Presenters: Black Feminist Healing Arts: Reading, Writing, & Living a Praxis of Womanist Care (UC Berkeley Summer Course led by Ree Botts, UC Berkeley Doctoral Student)
2019 ambassadors program- NEW YORK LOCAL
Pictured from L-R (Knathifa Cambridge, Merina Begum, Janyah Barrow, Janelle Johnson, Katrina Green, Akilah Collins (7th Grade JBG Ambassadors)
The 2019 Ambassadors program has inspired the following projects authored by secondary aged students:
Race, Girlhood, Criminality & Justice:
A multi modal project authored by 7th grade scholars of Excellence Girls Middle Academy
Presented at Columbia University’s DIRP Annual Research Conference & The National Urban League Headquarters (May 2018)
Justice for Black Girls:
The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls
An academic research project authored by 9th grade scholars of Capital Prep Harlem
Presented at Center for Justice at Columbia University inaugural justice conference entitled From the Inside Out: The Power of Language to Incarcerate (September 2019)