The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: LaTosha Brown & Chanceé Lundy Talk National Mentorship Month, Reclaiming Girlhood, Healing + More

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Today on The Breakfast Club, LaTosha Brown & Chanceé Lundy Talk National Mentorship Month, Reclaiming Girlhood, Healing. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. You're all finished or y'all's done? Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy. Just hilarious. Salomey Naga. We are the Breakfast Club.

Loong of Roses here as well. Yes, indeed. We got a special guest in the building. Now, January is National Mentorship Month. They got a month for everything. Everything. That is right. We have Natasha Brown and Sean C.

Lundy. Did I say your name right? It's Chonsei. Chonsei. They were telling me his chance at first, because it's spelled chance E.E. But it's Chonsei. Yeah, had an accent mark on the last.

And then I had to make sure that you wasn't Latosha. Well, you know black people are creative now. Come on, man. I just want to make sure. How are you ladies feeling? Good. Good, real good. What's the importance of national mentorship, love?

You want to start it off? Okay. So mentorship just is important in general because we all need guidance and somebody to look up to. Like you said, we have a month for everything. But mentorship is important. because sitting here is Latasha who I've known since I was 14 years old. So before there was an organization, there was anything. And before I even had the term mentor, she is someone that I found as a safe space.

Like when I was in high school and I grew up in the 90s and, you know, that's when a lot of people were getting in trouble. Drugs were out. Like a lot of things were happening within my household. She was running a girls group. And we met with her every week and she talked about leadership, about empowerment. And it became my place to go so that I didn't get. in trouble.

Like, you know, and so it just, and so it's always, I've always seen there's something important to pay it for. So when there's no terminology, I never called her my mentor until maybe 10 years ago. I was like, oh, I guess that's what it was. But it was like somebody who was looking out for me, looking out for other girls, using her own resources to take care of us. And us being a part of organizations is just making sure that we had something to do. Like, it's that guidance that you're not getting necessarily at home and having somebody

else to talk to, somebody to help guide you along. the way and to bounce ideas off of because you know we can get inside our heads especially when you're a teenager about what you think is right and you have somebody like no that's not right and you know you don't listen to your mama them all the time so that somebody's like that kind of reinforces those things that you know maybe you should take make different decisions what did you meet we were this was in the early 90s I was 24 years old I didn't know what I was doing what I knew from from Selma Alabama Alabama in Selma Alabama and it was the first I met her is really interesting.

When I met her, I immediately knew with something special in her. She lived in a local housing, public housing community, not too far from where I was. And while I didn't really know all the things to do, I knew that I had something to offer and I knew she had something to offer me. And so even when I'm thinking about mentorship,

like all of us, I'm hoping that not only we mentoring somebody, but somebody's mentoring us too, because I don't think that mentorship is just based on you being a young person. I think that that's one phase of it, right? But every single generation is depositing wisdom and information or should be in each other. When we get to the point that we don't listen to anybody else, like the oldest sisters are mentoring me, right? That from my relationship to how I move with my money to how I'm moving with myself.

And so I say that because you can't even find a, you can't find a great person. I think about Oprah. She always talks about how Maya Angelou was her mentor, right? So each of us, we need somebody pouring. And if there's any time that we need to build community, it's in this moment. I'm going to ask you, Latasha, who is your mentor? Because you everybody's mentor. Who is Latasha Brown's mentor?

So, you know, there's a couple of sisters that have been in my life. There's one in particular that's coming up. This is a sister named Barbara Perkins, Dr. Barbara Perkins, who is, she's really like a spiritual. I just, like, everything. I can, in some ways, she's like a sister friend. In some way, she's a mentor. But she's about 10 years older than I. am and she's been such a blessing in my life because sometimes you can't see yourself you need other people to help you see you right um and be able to be correct you be corrected because oftentimes we don't think love we think love is somebody just making you feel good yeah love is actually somebody correcting you right even if you're thinking about your parents but it was them sisters that might say back in the day because you know back in the day we were showing it all it might be that sister say well baby you might not need to go on the meeting you know with with this skirt on and on and on you know

some level at the time I may have felt something around it right but I understood the wisdom as I've gotten old I've understood the wisdom in that and so she's one there's a sister down in Selma Alabama fire rose to Ray who's an activist who actually was a mentor to me and has been and continue

to be a mentor and inspiration for me and then my family I got some bad sisters from the south when I think of my 92 year old aunt who raised me Ella Mae so Ella Bay in all of these sisters. Sometimes it's not just the ones that are just pointing to you directly. Sometimes it's that sister at the church that said something to you that day that shifted your

life. I know that there's this woman named Barbara Pitts, who is a sister who is in a 21st century. And one day we were doing this event and she kept saying, y'all got to work smarter, not harder. It hurt my feeling so bad. I was like, but Ms. Pitts, we are working. We work. It's years later to this day. Like, that's my mantra. I get it And so I'm hoping Even the people that are listening now You need to snatch you

We can't just be so selfish That it's about you pouring into Just your child You're responsible for your child But we're responsible Our community If our community is going to flourish Like we've got to really be able to pour into

Other folks So if God gave you a measure of wisdom Whatever extra you got That extra you got It's because somebody out there needs And so I hope that we really realize I know I am And not just because I had good parents or I had my family.

There are so many sisters. Some of them, their names, it'll take me all day to say the names. Some of their names I don't know, right, that have poured in and helped shape me. And so that's really important. That's what we try to do with Southern Black girls is about how we shape in this generation, like this whole idea of black women. Black women are the ones that are actually helping lead. But you don't just pop up one day, do you just?

And you're just a black woman. There was a process. You were a girl. Right? And you grew up and there were women along the way that when you were out of order or when there are things that you did know that had to pour into you. And then sometimes we didn't have those. We didn't have those in our families. So it was other sisters that might pull you and pour into you. So we're trying to create that kind of way. I want to say thank you. Hold on. I need her to expound on something. I want to say thank you first. Because the first thing you said when you walked in here was, you know, I prayed for your daughter when I heard the story. I just want to say thank you. So many people have been coming up to me and saying they pray for my daughter. And I just want to say thank you. A lot of time we just, you know, we don't say. thank you. I just want to say thank you. It built a lot. And that love and that prayer was was felt and God put his hands over my baby girl. So I just want to say thank you. You are absolutely welcome. And we saw when she got ready to go to school, baby, she was sharp. She was

ready. She was ready. I want to go back to something you said because I thought it was so powerful, man. You said that love is correction. Love is correction. Can you expand on this? Yeah, we think, we've allowed these folks to feed us this space of this idea that love is the thing that make you feel good or love is the thing that's supposed to align up, make you feel like, like you're just cushioned. At the end of the day, really, if you really think about love, love is the, love is correction. It says in the scriptures, I'm a person of faith that God corrects those that he love.

And really the people who, my best friends, right, my friends, including the sister who, she said that I'm her mentor, she now mentors me. Like, really, like when I am out of order. when I am my mind, when I'm ready to go burn it down, right? Or even sometimes when I'm just wrong, right? She actually brings, she allows me to be able to see myself and parts of myself that I can't see. And so part of my growth and development is being able to be open for people to correct me. Because that's an aspect of love.

And so we got to see that as the people that love you tell you the truth. The people that love you will pull you to the side to keep you from hurting yourself or hurting up. The folks that really love you ain't going to be down with your BS. The folks that love you, you know, really are the ones that are going to help get you in alignment to the best. They want to see the best that you can be. And part of that, a key part of that is really around correction. I was going to ask, you know, I have two questions, actually. One, how did your parents feel when you receive mentorship outside the house?

Because as a parent, at first I would think that they would be like, well, why do you need her to help you? You know what I mean? Why not me? And the second question I wanted to ask is what's the difference between a mentor and a friend, right? The reason I ask that is, let's say somebody like Charlemagne could give me an advice coming from a loving place.

Is that considered a mentor? Is that considered a friend? That's a great question. So I can talk about both of those. So first of all, I grew up with my grandmother. And it was, at one point, it was like 13 of us in the house. So she probably was just asking. Get out.

And for me, I grew up with a lot of boys. I was just looking outside. And I was a person who went to church a lot. So it was Sunday, Sunday, Monday, Monday, prayer meeting, Wednesday, Bible study, all that. I needed something else that was not that. And I was looking for, what I found myself doing was I was getting in trouble. Like, I was still making good grades in school. But, you know, I was hanging out later than when the streetlights came on.

I was starting to do that stuff. And my grandma was like, hold on, what's happening with her? You know, and she started talking, like, because I had a brother who was in juvenile detention. And I remember her, I can remember overhearing a conversation. like I got to do something about Chonsei. I was like, do something about me. Like me? Like, I still get AIDS, you know, but I was getting,

I was getting in trouble, like the student adjustment program at school, all of that. She's seen the turn. She's seen the turn. I was feeling myself, you know, you're 14. I'm like, you know, I'm a little grown, whatever. But I was wearing lipstick. But then what I noticed was I had like this one brother who was in juvenile detention. I had another brother who was skipping school, getting in trouble saying,

and something, it was like, it was God. I like said there's a thin line between success and failure. Like which way you're going to go? Like, are you going to take this path that's going this way? Or do you want to be like the first person in your family to graduate from college? Like, you can do something totally different in your family. So, and I was like, I got it in me. And so I started seeking.

And I remember saying Latasha actually at a high school football game. She was recruiting kids to be a part of her youth group or whatever. And she used to wear these Erica by do hair wraps. And I was like, it's something about. about that lady I want to see what she I want to see what she's talking about and I remember you she was on Harando Rivera with a young kid it was a program it was a program called do something and I was like I want to learn more about this is Selma Selma small so I started seeking out things and so I became a part of do something that transformed to when she left there I went we was a part of this organization that was nationwide nationwide called 21st century youth

leadership movement and Tasha was over the chapter that was in Selma And because of that, like, my grandma was happy. Like, she picking you up. You're doing something positive. You know, that was something that she needed help. And I had aunts and stuff like that, but that was somebody that I could talk to. You know, you see her doing good stuff in the community. You want your child to be aligned with that.

So I think my grandma, you know, if you talk to her, it was going to less Psalms 23, you know, we're going to read the Bible. You need to pray. But she, you know, I'm going to talk to Latasha and she going to make it plain. You know, make it plain in different ways that I can understand. And like she said, like sometimes you need someone who can correct you, but with love. Like we can get an argument right now. And in the next five minutes, we're going whatever.

But I'm like, no, you're wrong. And so I think that my grandmother enjoyed having that. She saw her as that she saw opportunity. Like she took me on my first flight. Like we going to this, we were talking about immigration and immigration rights. When I was a teenager, like she was taking me to economic justice meetings for the Southeast region. I didn't know anything about that, but she was like, I'm going to expose you. My first trip out of the country, she took me to Mali West Africa.

Like she took me, exposed me to different things. And so that allowed me to expand my mind and say, this is what I want to do. And it's not just me. There are so many women that are doing it. There are so many people who are pouring into folks like this. And you ask what's the difference between a mentor and a friend? I think it calls for both. I think that there are formal mentorships that people have, right?

You can be at your job. And people tell you go find like this formal mentor. You meet with them twice a week. You go over some goals. you do kind of that stuff. But then there are just people that you're going to pick up the phone and call and there's guidance. You can just download.

They're not necessarily a therapist, but they are your personal kind of therapist. And there develops this friendship between you. And then there are some that are more like mother figures that are in your life, who they are mentoring you. And they may have specific programming. Like we're talking about leadership this time. We're talking about etiquette. We're talking about, you know, we might be talking about science, like all of the things.

Like we have a program laid out. But you know that when something's going on in the home, when there's something going on at school, you can come to me. I'm going to advocate on your behalf. I'm going to make sure you have the tools and the resources that you need. But I also can be your friend. I think that that kind of grows. I feel like there are mentors that I've had within my life,

not only Latasha, but even when I was in college as a first generation college student, I didn't have anybody else to call. So there was a woman named Dr. Crystal Martin. I just want to lift her up who in college, she would, I met with her every week through a program called student support services. Every single week I met with her. But she's now a friend. Like she's somebody I can call and kind of talk to.

I send other people to her when they're looking for career services and all that stuff. So I think that it's the relationships transform. Like even when you first meet somebody, it's not the same relationship that you may have five, ten years down the line. And it takes nurturing to become more of that friendship dynamic too. How do you talk to the girls that you guys work with who were like, like, like, you all brought up a good point of, it took you some time. You had to get to a certain point in your life where you were mature enough to understand that the mentorship. like how to take it and how to apply it to your life right and i take it as like something you

should go against when you're talking to these younger girls how do you talk them through no this mentorship is something that you need you should be receptive to it because sometimes you know if you're in fight or flight mode you don't you know what's really interesting those the girls that i want those are the girls i always would like the girl in the class that was cutting up i like that's my leader right then that's the sister that i want right and so part of it is i don't know if i think that girls are going to wake up one day and say they want a mentor there are some that do that and I want them to do that. That's not necessarily how it played out a certain kind of way. I haven't met a child that don't want to be poured into. We got this whole idea that kids don't

want to be listened to girls, boys, or whatever. I've not met a kid that don't want to be poured into. We just don't want to have the discipline and the courage to actually figure out the rhythm of it. If I come at you a certain kind of way, if I'm paying attention to you, I should know that if I come at you a certain kind of way, you ain't going to listen to me, right? So I'm going to feed you what you eat. If you're going to come to me, if there's a certain that I've seen that you want attention, then there might be a way that I give you some individual attention. I pull this sister to the side that's cutting up in the classroom and be like, what's going on?

Just talk to her or listen to her. And so I think sometimes we're so caught up in these structures of what they're supposed to look like that we forget that these young people oftentimes, when they're acting out, they're asking for help. They want some support. They want somebody to see them. And so I know I did. There are times that I cut up because I didn't know, I didn't have no, I was frustrated.

I didn't know what else to do, right? I might not have had anybody that I wanted to talk about at home. It may be something I was going to, going through that I was embarrassed about. So I say that to say that I, you know, I do think that young people and particularly young women, and I'm hoping for the kids, even young women, every woman should have them a mentor. I don't care if you 80 years old, you need to have somebody each a knowledge base, like your institution. knowledge base is person after person so every single human being you should be thinking about who you are mentoring and who is mentoring you who's pouring into you and who are you pouring into and so

I'm with the girls that oftentimes it's just really the gathering like the gathering and building relationship like I'm not trying to put you in my mentor box that's why some of them programs don't work because all they see you is as a number you just another number in my program right instead of I actually see you as a person and I am using a and I'm creating a space for you to understand if you want to be in relationship like we can be down and so what we've seen is hundreds of girls like if y'all come to y'all got to come to our black girl um uh uh our dream conference like it they need the mentor listen it's they need it and they're actually open for it we just in our minds we talk about them too we talk about us oh y'all

I need that. Jess said what, let's say, Jess. So I, come on. The girl that you were just describing, right, like the one that's cutting up in class. The one that talked too much? I was definitely her. You know what I mean? I was funny.

I was, you know, just always making a mockery of everything. But I did my work and everything. So I resonate with that part of it. Because I'm a leader. And I was told that by a lot of mentors in school and like nurses and teachers and things like that. but I want to know is it ever do you ever have parents or moms that are like not receptive

to what y'all do? Oh absolutely let me just say in my process I don't know if I had I never was in a mentoring program necessarily like that my mother was unable to keep me I wasn't raised by my mother

I actually was raised partly by my grandmother my grandparents my mother lived with us but she had an illness and then my then I wound up staying with my aunt as well And so I didn't have the traditional. And there was something in me that even though I always was safe, I wanted the leave it the beaver family. I wanted the mama the dad.

You know what I mean. And I know some of y'all don't even know what I'm talking about. But so I think part of it, we're going to run. Let me give one example of something that happened with Southern Black girls. We were doing, this is almost me. So when we were gathering, before we started, we wound up doing focus groups all over. all 13 states. We work at 13 states. And so in one of the places

we were in, we were in New Orleans, and there was a sister about 40 years old. We were doing focus groups with the kids, with girls between the ages of like 12 and 16 or something. And we were asking questions. And one the question was, what is a black girl's dream? What's your dream? Right. And so

we're in this space. We're down in New Orleans, and there's a sister in her 40s. She keep jumping in. She keep jumping in. So there's, she disrupted the thing because it's for the kids. So I pulled her to the side. I pulled outside. I said, listen, sister, you know, we're trying to get with the kids and we're trying to get their dreams. And when you jump in, she said, I know, I know, I know.

She said, I'm just so excited because I'm 40-some years old and ain't nobody ever asked me my dream. And so I'm like, just think of that, right? Ain't nobody ever asked me that. And so I'm saying that because some of even the way I work, I work ain't just about the girls. Y'all will be surprised. Sure. I'll be surprised that when we're having our work. You will have 60-year-olds, 70-year-olds.

We're telling black women reclaim your girlhood. Oftentimes, many of us, our girlhood was taken, whether it's through sexual assault, whether it was you had to grow up too soon because your mom and your dad, folks had to go to work, whether you had to defend or fight for your family and take care of the other kids, your girlhood was taken from you. But it's still a part of you. So we're saying reclaim that. So while we're working with the girls, we're oftentimes working with,

We have other activities for adults and parents. And sometimes it is. It is their parent that may not want their kids. But I'm telling you, baby, they come up in the space. We got them. You come up in the space. We got you. Right.

Not because the other thing is not because we're trying to trick you is because we see you too. And we see your little girl and we affirm your little girl that's in you. Because all of us got some brokenness. All of us got that. That's the point in which we get broken as children. And so that's all adulthood is. That's all adulthood. It's the majority of your adulthood.

Trying to fix it. Trying to fix your inner child. And so our work is based on the inner child. Yeah, I tell people all the time, you can talk to somebody that's 85 years old and they'll start talking about what happened when they was 15. That's right. They're like 15. I'm like, dang, but you don't live the whole like 60 years past that, you know, so.

But that's it. And I think that one of the questions when you were asking about the parents, I think what it is sometimes is fear. It's fear in what they haven't been exposed to themselves. Like I work with young people. Sometimes like taking them on trips. I started something because Latasha took me on trip. I take girls on trips.

And so the most resistance I get sometimes is from parents. I'm like, you don't want your child to do this. But it's because they haven't been. They haven't seen. They haven't been exposed. And they're afraid. And I get that. But once they see and like you said, once you experience something,

then, you know, you want your child to be a part of it. But I think that a lot of times it's also just the fear. And what are you going to tell my child that I haven't? Yeah. And that's usually what it is. Because I always use the example from the movie. lean on me, you know, Morgan Freeman, remember there was a girl, I think I was Shanique or whatever, it was a girl, she had got pregnant or whatever.

I mean, remember when they went to the house, the mom wasn't receptive of them trying to help her and everything. And she was explaining to her mom, but this is going to help me. You know, but when you look at the mom, at the end, everything, calm down and everything and she was able to receive the help. But the mom had never, ever experienced somebody really trying to help them or was ever exposed to somebody trying to change their life, you know. And so a lot of times, the parents.

parents can be the downfall of the kid. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I guess because they haven't lived out their childhood. Right. And they did with their fact. Right. Things have been given to them like transaction. If somebody does this for me, then what are they going to want? So I'm afraid to receive your help because you're going to want something from me and I can't pay it back.

Or scared of the judgment. Or the judgment. Or the judgment. Absolutely. Let me ask you ladies a question, right? This is a full-time job, right? I got about 12 on. I was going to ask.

So how do you make sure your needs are being met? You know, both of you because you got bills. You got a place to live. You got to drive somewhere. So how do you make sure what you're doing, all this work to help everybody else? How are people helping you? Well, I want to start, but I want to turn this over to Chonsei because I do want to lift her up. This young woman, Chonsei is the bomb.

Let me say something. I am so proud of it. I'll do no other work in my life. Like, I am so grateful to God for this sister. You know, and I'm saying this because she, gave when she gave even I had this vision created this organization

she had a business this she went to school became an engineer did all the things like just beat all the barriers right and created her business and then I knew I couldn't really afford her at the time but I'm like can you just come over here and work with me a little bit right um and she came

and fed into the organization and now she leads the organization literally I'd like do what she tell me to do and leaves the organization but it's so much love. Like this is our life. Like this work is an extension of our life. And so it's so much love, I think part of what keeps us moving is that we fundamentally believe that God,

we really do. We believe that this is part of our mission and our calling. But let me just turn over you. I just want to say how much that part of this is you got to do work. When you're working with people, you need to love people. You don't need to be working with people. You don't love people.

Yeah. So I'll say for me, one, thank you, Latasha. But I always felt like it was my life's calling. Like I was going to end up back in this circle in some kind of way. I've always worked with girls. I've always done this work in some form of fashion. But now to do it as a full-time job, it was just time, right? It was timing for me to do this.

And I get full by just being in community. Like, see, if you look at the organizations around our 13 states who are doing work when I see how they are transforming the lives of young people in those communities. This past weekend we had a youth leadership academy. We have young people that represent all of our 13 states and they came together. They were putting on workshops themselves. Like they had come up with stuff like when you see stuff like that like you're just like in all. It doesn't feel like work. I mean it do sometimes. But it doesn't feel like work. It's like the goodness. Like when you see black women coming together and like literally throughout

The country there are women doing this work, particularly in the South, where folks are working with very little resources to do this work, often pulling out of their own pockets to do this work, but they know that it's necessary. Like, it's like, how can you not go on? And I have a son. So, you know, I don't get the girly, all the stuff and the wear pink, so like he, you know, so this is my outlet.

Right. This is my outlet for that. But I also am making it better for him. Because when you help, some people, you help, when you help black women, you help everybody. You're helping the community. And so that's how I see it. It's just a continuation of just what was given to me.

I don't even like to say that I'm paying it for it. I'm just doing what God called me to do. What I really want to know is how can people donate and help? Oh, yeah. We got that. That's what I was asking. People listening. Somebody's like, I can't be on it and be a mentor, but let me give a little something.

Listen, there's a couple of ways people can be involved, right? So we have the way that we do our money. Like we started, I want folks to understand. we had no money. Like God gave me a vision. I was in the shower. God gave me a vision. I moved on. We had no money. The vision is what we decided in the last five years, we've given away how much? $11.4 million. $11.4 million where we've put on the ground. We just gave a million dollars. Let me show you how good God is. So I know this ain't a whatever. I'm going to show you how good guy is. So this year, we thought last year because we didn't have, we didn't, last year was a really hard time to raise money, especially

because we got black. All my organizations got black in the name because I'm black, black, but anyway, we had a hard time at the end of the year. We thought we were going to have to suspend our programs. Why was it hard? Was it for the DEI? I think the DIA, all of that. And even the groups, the youth groups, I don't know why, but oftentimes when money get cut in state budgets and city budgets, the first programs they cut are young people, our youth. Right. And so here we are in the states that are already, many of the, we work in the hardest states. We work in the hard of states, right? When you think of states like Mississippi that 99, I need folks to understand 99% of the kids in public schools, white and black in Mississippi, are on free or reduced lunch.

Like, so that's what our playground. We go on where it's hard, right? And so the resources were not coming and we thought we were going to have to suspend our program. Last at that, just in the nick of time, we had a donor, two donors to come in and be able to support. And a year that was our toughest, we were able to have our largest grant cycle. So in January, what did we do? Yeah, we gave about $1.4 million, $1.2 million away. To not just nonprofits, but to also. Also, we supported 25 businesses, too.

We had an entrepreneurship program, our dream investment program last year where we had training for early stage entrepreneurs, those people who in three to five years, but also young people who had businesses as well. So we supported businesses. We supported our defense fund. We supported black women who were. working for the protection of black girls and our dream fund,

which is those critical intervention type of organizations, whether it's leadership, empowerment, STEM, arts and culture, we were able to support those organizations across the South who are doing that work. One of the things, I want to lift up something that Latasha said. One of the things that we saw last year is that somebody in community who's doing this work, they may not have gotten federal money directly, but it may have trickled down through three, four levels before it got to them. So it was a state of emergency last.

year literally a state of emergency for our organizations organizations are collapsing and I just want to lift up without those two donors we would not have been able to to we gave money out to 62 organizations last year and that was just unheard of that's not what people were doing and the average the average budget of our organizations is under two hundred thousand dollars and so even that that $30,000 grant 40,000 dollar grant 15,000 dollar grant people call us crying because of that money because that's sustaining them and you can give to us by going to southern black girls that

I saw black girls that orgy. I'm going to ask something. How do you, I first of all I love this conversation because mentorship is so important for men and women, but how do you mentor without projecting your own path onto someone else? That's an excellent point. That's an excellent point. That's why you get paid the big bucks.

Yeah, that's why you get paid the big bucks. That's a great point. You know, I think that there is, on some level we be real. We all do that. So let's just say that. Like all of us do that on some level. But I think part of what I love the way that Chonsei and her team have been setting things up, you know, is that we create space for there to be peer to peer mentorship as well.

So it can't just be top down. It's also you got to create these other spaces. And you can talk about the ambassadors. Yes. Even with our youth ambassadors, like, they're leading and we give them space. So one, we give them space to make decisions. We have what we call a participatory grant making model. We do trust-based philanthropy.

These are all the terms. But what it means is we build with community. So community is giving input into the decisions that we're making. And even with our young people, they actually tell. tell us what they want. They tell us the path. Like we don't helicopter in and say, we think that young people need to see X, Y, Z. They tell us this is what's most important. Like, for example, this past weekend, they told, I don't think we talked about mental health like this, like this in the late 90s. We weren't talking about mental health in this way. But the girls,

all we were hearing was that we need more support for mental health. We need more support. So they guide that decision-making. So even as a mentor, it means listening to what people are saying the needs are, because I can't tell you to go down this path. I can might give you some, these are some of the infrastructure you might need, but I'm listening to what you need and how I can support it. There are some young girls who are some of our youth ambassadors. They were talking about in Mississippi that girls really need mental health. They have set up now.

They were empowered to set up their own, we supplied them with resources, a group therapy. Like now that they're going to be having group therapy, they've been supplied with therapy. So now they've set up their own Magnolia Circle. So now they're going to have mental health and wellness. They saw such a need for mental health healing and like different practices in Mississippi. Speaking of mental health, one of the things is what we're excited, one of our, one of, a highlight for us is we partnered with Megan the Stallion. So we did, we partnered with her, we've been working with her foundation for the last, how many years? Since 2020. Since 22. And we did a, we have what is called Black Girl Joy Challenge. Yeah, our Black Girl Joy Challenge is where we put money directly in the hands of girls. We give them $550 and say, how can you spread joy to 10 of your family members? of friends and community. And these girls are doing some amazing work.

And that's because we don't want them to see themselves as victims. We want to see them as generators of solutions. So you come up with your own program, what you want to do. We've seen girls who are working in period poverty. We've seen girls who, like one girl put out to meet a teacher appreciation dinner. Whoever just took their teachers out of dinner. You know, we've seen particularly a young lady who won an award through Megan Estallius, Pete and Thomas Foundation, was Mila Henry.

She came up with mental health boxes, MH boxes, that she passes out to other girls. Like we've seen girls come with affirmation boxes. They're doing some really amazing work. But it's, yeah, we're actually doing another. And the highlight of our Black Girl Joy Challenge is last year we reached a milestone. We gave out 1,000. It made us giving out over the past five years.

We've given a thousand girls this Black Girl Joy Challenge. Y'all need to go to our website. Go down YouTube. But I tell you, we got it going on. Y'all need to go to YouTube. That's a thousand girls in community who are trans. transform a community. Some of these are full-fledged organizations. Like there are some there's some twins from Montgomery Alabama that started with us. They got our first Black

Girl Joy Challenge in 2020. They were actually nominated I think last year to be seeing in heroes because now Alabama has even passed legislation around in the period poverty and there's so much stigma around menstruation. I probably say the word right. But there's so much stigma around it, but they found out the one in five girls miss a school because they don't have sanitary supplies. And so they started that passing things out. And then we actually gave them a bigger grant so they could do more in schools. And then the state set up a fund so that this is in Alabama.

They set up a fund so that schools could apply to now have those supplies in schools. So they're making a difference. Like Mighty Rivers of Field Trip by Drick. Y'all would give somebody $550 and they'd be like, I ain't got no family. You saw them. No, you know, the girls are coming. And it's been game changes because part of what happens is, y'all really, really how things happen. It's not based on money.

It's based on belief. That's right. If you're really honest, it's really based on belief. And so when you start feeding and seeded, just think about it. Think about it. It might be something real small, but think about the first person that's seeded into your vision. Like, there's something about that that gave you an affirmation of what you could do. And so part for our work, our work is we really are.

We try, we build, we try to build nations. We build it. We got nation builders. We're thinking about this thing differently. If black women are going to be on the forefront, then how are we seeding and feeding and investing in them? You know, I got a phone call one day out of Sky Blue from Oprah Winfrey had found out about the work. And she called and said, she just wanted to know. She's like, tell me about your vision.

And she said it reminded her of what she did with the sisters in South Africa. We've had the vice president to call us about the work. Yeah, randomly. She dropped the money, though. Yeah. Open her to be calling me talking about everything. All me. Did she drop with you?

Listen, listen. Was she that a million man? No, she was not the million man. She was not a million man. She wrote. But listen. people and it was all that money. It wasn't them. It wasn't them though. The device is good, but come on. Yeah. I also think, and I think that there's a, I'm glad you raised that because it does open

up another space. Black folk, we got to take care of black institutions. Now, we're just going to, we're going to have to step up. In this moment, are we not seeing it? We shouldn't be dependent on no federal funding. Some people, like, we know what's going on, right? Our kids should not be subject to the benevolence of white folks. That ultimately, even a duck got enough sense. to take care of his ducklings. So ultimately, we're giving money to Louie and all those other folks, and I get it because I like the stuff. I like stuff like stuff like stuff, right?

But we're supporting them to support their children, right? And we're not supporting our own stuff. Our institutions got to be supported by us. So we love when we get them $25 hits, those $100 hits, those, yes, you can go and drop a million in Charlemagne. But we got too much. Right, right. The big bucks, that's why you make the big bucks. I know he does.

That's my brother. That's my brother. That's my brother. And I love his love for community. And we appreciate you because this platform is important. And so I think it's really important for us to lift up. Y'all, we got to get it together. We can't be the same.

If other folks are shifting, then that means we got to do a paradigm shift. And so if they're trying to build a nation that is rooted in racism, that ain't going to be rooted in white supremacy. We can't be down with that. You got a nation bill. We're a nation within a nation. And part of even what black folks did, just nine years after slavery, we had founded hundreds of cities. We had built schools.

These are people who have formerly been enslaved. So why are we not doing that at this level? Because we are actually now directing our resources in a way that's just consumerism. And I'm not saying this as a judgment. I'm saying this as a wake-up call. If you see folk, like, because I want somebody to come and say that I know the work we're doing. It's life changing in 13 states. I know the work that we're doing.

It's changing lives. It's changing my life. It's changing her life. So at the end of the day, put your money in some good ground and you're going to yield a good harvest and we're a good harvest. How do you mentor intergenerationalally, right? Because you talked about period of period. You talked about older women, right? One of the conversations I have a lot with other black women right now is about how when we have these older women in our lives, sometimes the nurturing through love isn't.

the best experience and then it kind of turns you off from accepting certain things or you know it's just it's kind of like almost like a hazing sometimes so how are you guys correcting that because I think that goes back to investing in your people

when you feel like from generation up the people got you. Listen I was 40 years old they were still putting me in a youth group so I understand so it is that we have all of that in our community it's nuanced and it's complicated

and it's beautiful and it's terrible and all the things right and so part of it is the more that we bring people in community and give folks opportunities. There's some things that even in our work while as black girls that we have created spaces for other sisters, sisters 60, 70, 50

to actually reclaim their girlhood by serving in ways. Yeah, so we have a wisdom council. And our wisdom council, those are, you can be 12 to 112 on a wisdom council. And those are people who are making decisions about our grantees. Those are people who are putting workshops together. But not only that, we have,

We have women organizations too. So all of our organizations are not girl focus. Some of them are also focusing on women. But from your intergenerational conversation, I think that sometimes we just have to know that everybody is not our person. Like even from a girl standpoint, when you're talking about mentorship, everybody is not our person.

I'm not sending you anywhere to behave. And I will say that even when we come into community sometimes, people come into community with their preconceived. We got to walk, we got a hut to a certain kind of way. But when you get a community with us and you see that, We'll have to pull you to the side. No, we're not telling them we're going to do that.

We come in here with love. So you're going to have to get on a love train or you can watch and observe, you know. I'm glad you said that about mentees because you do have those older women that Lauren is talking about. But then you have some of these young folks that don't like correction. So is it okay to ever outgrow a mentor? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that there are times, all relationships, there are all relationships can be outgrown.

And sometimes, and I always go with this, like, what's the first? like chew the meat and throw away the bones. Like, you know, there are some things, there's knowledge you can get from a lot of different spaces. And then there are sometimes you can tell that people are giving you information that's kind of based on, they're projecting their own what happened to them, their own hurt,

that whatever is you like, sometimes I can be listening to somebody and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take that, that, not that, take that, that, not that. And then I know like, that's not, you know, and then sometimes I know when the season has ended, right? So it may be time for that season to end and you don't get that good feeling. So you know, if you keep

forcing yourself into a relationship just because somebody said you got to be in this relationship like why are you there you can find somebody else and I think that sometimes that usually comes from that formal structure or even organization sometimes like I'm not sending you anywhere to be hurt right you know you should go talk to anybody that you know it's hurting you like if someone is not giving you the best advice if they're not looking out for you and like you said even in our conversations although I saw Latasha as his mentor is like really as a big sister because I said we didn't have that language like as a big sister there were times like Latasha's telling me me stuff and I'm telling her. You know like you need to do this, this, this and this.

You know, this is what I think. How you're going to, what you're going to do about it? You know, or just turning that mirror, you know, sometimes. So it's a two-way street. Even with older people, like, I've always been able to have that conversation. You know, even when my grandma used to do stuff. Now, you know, you can't really tell your grandma too much, but I try. You know what I'm saying? Then there's some things I used to be like, you know, I'm just let her keep writing that check to them people. Like, I told her. My grandma passed. We found all kind of charity she was given to. I was like, I told her to stop doing that. Like they're not going to listen, but you know, there's that intergenerational

aspect that you have. Like, there are people and family. So I think that we have people and family that we may not be going anywhere from that. And then there are people who just in community, like that we can like, hey, we're going to part ways. Yep. I'm going to talk to somebody else. And there are people, like, at the end of the day, what I'm real concerned about in this moment is the new flavor today is being mean. Like some way, like everything is about a clickbait. Everything is about let me be mean. And some way that that's, that means that I'm strong or I'm dominant. At the end of the day, people are people.

You either love people or you don't. And so there are sisters. Sisters, there's brothers. They're just some mean-ass people, right? And at the end of the day, when you see that, you have to separate even in our space. Listen, if we're in the space and she's saying it, you know, if there is an adult talking to the kids a certain kind of way,

what did I say earlier? Love corrected. We're going to correct you. You can't come in our space and be abusive to those girls. not in front of us, not what we see, and we actually create safe spaces for the kids so that they can actually, they got their own rhythm, they got their own language,

they got their own thing that they do. And we're also pouring into adults that work with them as well because they got their own space and we want them to really be able to grab home and reclaim their own girlhood. But at the end of day, all of us, in this moment, I'm hoping that we understand, you know, I ain't come on here to be political,

but let me say this. I hope we understand that this, moment ain't about Trump. Now all that we can sit in and think that this moment is about Trump and Republicans, no it ain't. This moment really is, in my opinion, this moment is really a hard reset for us to look at ourselves. What are we doing? Like we created Trump. Every time you actually thought that you were better than somebody else, that fed into that kind of energy. Every time you stepped over that homeless person, that fed into that energy. Every time you believe that some people deserve food and other folks did, you fed into that injury.

we created and fed this monster, this monster of meanness and madness in this country, right, that will do anything for attention, that would do anything to get money, that would do anything to make himself be dominant. That lives in us, too. And so part of, if we want to see something different, then we're going to have to be different. So in this space, as we deal with our kids, like I'll hear folks, and they'll say something, yeah, but these boys now, these boys do the same thing that boys did 50 years ago. They're doing it all right.

They're just doing it all right. These girls, the girls are the same damn thing that you did. The bottom line, you're talking about the girl getting pregnant. Half of y'all, you just didn't get caught. Right? At the end of the day, don't act like y'all want to having sex. Right? So I'm saying that because there's a particular kind of way that we judge others to make ourselves feel bigger and better.

Ain't that what's happening right now, that kind of consciousness? So I'm just hoping that with us, we actually bring love and power to the space. And we create, we ain't got it perfect. We ain't got it all figured out, right? But what I do know is I do know that if we're coming to a process, if we're trying to create even mentorship, we're calling mentorship, but we hear this phrase that it takes a village to raise a child. That's just pure truth.

Right. We just a village. We are another village. We provide resources. It's money, message, and movement building. That's what we do. Wow. We appreciate you for joining us.

Tell us how they can donate one more time if they're listening. You can go to southern black girls. That's right. Southern black girls. That's right. Well, January is National Mentorship, Muff and thank you

women for joining us. Appreciate you. And Latasha, you'll be back this year because the midterms is in November. Y'all know. No black mood as matters.

Latsha. Bootsha. Boutts on the ground. Sean Seid. Chonsei. Chonsei Lentay. And Latosha. Lettasha,

you know she's. It's the breakfast club. Good morning. You're all finished or y'all done? This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.