With Fearless Faith Blog

Celebrating Women’s History Month with women who are actively shaping Hamilton County through policy, advocacy, and community!

I’m always grateful to be in rooms where conversation turns into action.

Delta Day at City Hall was a full-circle moment.

As a member of the Cincinnati Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, it’s always an honor to contribute to spaces that center social action and service. Being able to help shape this event, including researching and selecting the menu (because of course I volunteered for that), was such a joy. I take my public policy seriously… and I take the food just as seriously.

It meant a lot to support my sorors in a space where I also get to serve professionally. There’s something special about merging the work I do every day with the organization that help shaped my commitment to social action. I am grateful to participate, contribute, and show up fully in both worlds.

Last night, Judge Wende Cross was the keynote speaker at Miami University’s Still We Rise Banquet hosted by the Black Leadership Coalition, and I left feeling both proud and quiet in the best way.

Sitting with her and her friends, hearing what Miami looked like for them in the 80s, I could feel the weight of what they carried so today’s Black students could walk a little lighter. Their stories were not just memories, they were blueprints paving the way for future students.

Her speech did something to me. It made me think about my own time on a PWI campus. The organizing. The protests. Bringing Divine Nine organizations back. Expanding cultural spaces. Fighting for something as simple and as meaningful as food that reflected who we were. At the time, it just felt necessary. Last night, it felt like part of a lineage.

Now, in my professional role serving as Director of Policy, I think about that same question in every room I enter: what way am I paving? Who will benefit from the decisions we make long after we are gone?

Still we rise is not just a theme, it is a responsibility. And I am grateful to witness the women who paved before us, while asking myself how boldly I am paving now.