Serve Our Sisters Aids, Uplifts Returning Black Women Around MLK Holiday Call to Action
By Aldore Collier
When the national Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday rolls around in January, Color Of Change members in seven cities will be busy assembling care packages for women returning to communities after being incarcerated.
Hundreds of COC members and volunteers in Philadelphia, Raleigh, Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans and Los Angeles will stuff bags with personal items such as lotion, shampoo, lip balm, feminine products, toothbrushes, soap, journals and other products as part of COC’s Serve Our Sisters program.
Serve Our Sisters’ purpose is to lift and take action to support Black women through the power of community service. The program brings attention to the disproportionate rate at which Black women are locked up in the United States and their needs upon release.
The bags also will contain hand-written notes of encouragement to uplift the women as they deal with the transition of re-entry.
COC members and volunteers will be preparing the care packages that will then be delivered to local nonprofit organizations that work directly with the women re-entering those communities.
“Serve Our Sisters came about as a way to help Black women,” said Naima Savage, deputy senior organizing director with COC’s Movement Building Team.
The program started in 2018 in Detroit, when hundreds of women attended a brunch sponsored by Color Of Change and dedicated themselves to working to honor Black women.
As the number of brunches grew, so did their mission. “The brunches became a call to action,” said Savage, who is based in New Orleans.
Serve Our Sisters arose from that call to action. Organizers chose the King holiday to host the Serve Our Sisters events because the holiday traditionally is a day of service for Black communities, Savage said. The Serve Our Sisters events around the country have become a time “dedicated both to honor Dr. King’s legacy and to honor Black women,” she said.
The gatherings are festive service events, with more than 100 COC members anticipated to turn out this January in each city. With the help of family members, friends and other volunteers, they are expected to assemble about 14,000 care packages.
“We play music, have food, a DJ and provide a nice brunch or lunch,” Savage said. “Last year, we made 13,000 care packages.” In 2022, the number totaled about 10,000.
Studies show that Black women are incarcerated at about four times the rate of white women in the United States. Although they make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black women comprise almost 40 percent of the women who are incarcerated, the Washington Post reported.
Studies also show that it is difficult for women leaving jail or prison to find adequate housing or to get the basic support they need to thrive and survive when they return to their communities. Many end up living in homeless shelters.
Within three years, about 60 percent of women get re-arrested and return to prison or jail, in large measure because of the lack of support when it comes to jobs, public benefits and housing, according to several studies and advocacy organizations.
Serve Our Sisters plays a small role in helping to strengthen Black women by providing basic necessities. Some of the care packages also are distributed to women’s shelters.
“Being able to work with our members on service actions like Serve Our Sisters means so much to me because I see how we’re able to engage in restorative justice healing as a community,” said Destanie Newell, a senior regional field manager in COC’s western region. “We get to work together to lift those around us who are impacted by all of these systems that are disproportionately affecting Black families and it comes full circle.”