Dear Mama, What if I told you the saying,  “real gs move in silence is killing your dream?  What if I told you to tell everyone and anyone you know what you want to do?  What if I told you your notes app and Evernote are the keys to the manifestation of your dreams?  What if I told you every time we tell our stories, we reclaim what was stolen? Every time we create, we declare: We are still here.  These are our takeaways from our conversation with prolific children’s book author, Alliah Agostini, who wrote The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States & one of my favorite children’s books, Great Idea Malia.  

In this episode, we explore the intersections of Black motherhood, creativity, community, and freedom. Alliah provides invaluable insights for other Black mama creatives, encouraging them to trust their journey and to navigate the world of storytelling with authenticity and courage. Her experience is a testament to the power of community and culture as a treasure trove of inspiration. 

We get real about: ✨Complexities of Black culture ✨The importance of always telling our stories, but especially right now ✨Handling critique and nurturing creativity  ✨Building community and managing ideas

PLUS - If you’re looking for some hope right now. We got you.  In our Black Mama Say segment, where we put our own twist on sayings from Black Mamas, we talk about what’s giving us hope while this country is on fire. 

ABOUT ALLIAH AGOSTINI

Buffalo, NY native Alliah L. Agostini has marketed everything from iconic brands to scrappy start-ups, but motherhood helped her return to her first love: children's literature. She writes to spread joy, truth, and to help more children see themselves reflected on the page.  Alliah is the author of 10 books for children including Junior Library Guild Selection BIG TUNE: Rise of the Dancehall Prince (starred reviews, Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly, NYPL and Chicago Public Library Best Picture Book of 2023), Black KidLit Award-winning The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States, Great Idea Malia, and recently released Scarecited on the First Day of School.  She and her work have been featured on Oprah Daily, Essence.com, TODAY with Hoda + Jenna, Morning in America, Good Housekeeping, CNN, and NPR.

Connect with Alliah: Instagram | Website

IMPORTANT CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Collection Plate Cause: Learn more about & donate to Creators Well, a nonprofit founded by Crystal for Black girls living in South Carolina intersted in writing and performance. 

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #19 “I Honor My Child's Divine Path” 💗

Episode Playlist:  Black Mama Creatives Episode Playlist

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

Instagram | YouTube | Email List

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Please share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us, or email us at [email protected].

To expand knowledge and combat misinformation and disinformation, we create a syllabus (s/o to Melissa Harris Perry), a list of references/sources for our listeners to dive into.  This list includes any books, videos, podcasts, etc. that we've mentioned in the episode or that will help you gain a well-informed perspective. For our complete syllabus, check out our website: demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What if I told you your mess tells a story, and your clutter can block your clarity?  What if I told you to reframe cleaning as a way to express gratitude, practice self-care, and create a sacred space where your spirit can operate effortlessly and creativity flows freely?  What have you put down that you need to put away?  What items are you holding onto that no longer serve you?  These are the questions our guest professional organizer, Kendra Littlejohn of Organized by Kendra, brought to the forefront.  In this episode, she gently stepped on our toes and helped us reframe our approach to organizing our creative space. We dive into:

✨Accepting and honoring the season you're in ✨Clarity and how Mamas can reclaim or create space for themselves ✨And the plot twist we didn’t know we needed, how reducing laundry ✨PLUS Kendra is offering a free, yes FREE Virtual Space Audit to the first three people to sign up & use the code: demblackmamas

ABOUT KENDRA

Kendra Littlejohn is the founder and Chief Organizing Officer at Organized by Kendra, a premier home organizing and styling firm based in Southaven, MS, and serving the greater Memphis metropolitan area, and beyond. With her background in corporate finance experience, Kendra brings a unique blend of business acumen, creativity, and passion for helping ambitious professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives cancel clutter, optimize space, and create systems that seamlessly balance aesthetics with practicality. Being laid off after 20+ years in corporate finance became the catalyst for Kendra to lean into what had always come naturally—turning disorganized spaces into peaceful, functional environments.  Since launching OK, Kendra’s insights have been spotlighted in prominent publications like ESSENCE, REAL SIMPLE, and SOUTHERN LIVING. Kendra specializes in customized organizing solutions that create ease and enhance both function and beauty. 

Connect with Kendra Littlejohn: Instagram | Website

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #13 “Black Mama Creative = Dream Doula” 💗

EPISODES MENTIONS/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 68 All About Annie, Sinners and Black Motherhood

🎙️DBM Black Mama Creative Episode Playlist

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

Instagram | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Please share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us, or email us at [email protected].

To expand knowledge and combat misinformation and disinformation, we create a syllabus (s/o to Melissa Harris Perry), a list of references/sources for our listeners to dive into.  This list includes any books, videos, podcasts, etc. that we've mentioned in the episode or that will help you gain a well-informed perspective. For our complete syllabus, check out our website: demblackmamas.com

Dear Mamas & Magic Makers,

Lissen yall Sinners was all about Annie for us!  We ain’t gon hold you with our normal intro.

In this episode we dive into:

• Annie, power, and Black motherhood
• Loss, longing, and sex
• Black humanity, spirituality, and grief in Ryan Coogler’s films
• Black migration & the resurgence of Southern Roots

PLUS - we have social proof that a Black mama would have made a COMPLETELY different decision than Grace.

And we’re excited to have some listeners on The Muthaship, live inside the Black Mama Magic room for this episode.  We welcome:

• Clem the Doula, doula and creator of The Gift: A Breastfeeding Journey in Black, a cultural care circle for Black families navigating feeding, healing and identity.
• Stacey Allen, founder of Nia’s Daughters’ Dance Collective 
• Stephanie Ghoston Paul, founder of Cultivated Sense, where she helps movement makers embody their joy while operating as their freest selves. 

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #4 “Take Up Space Boo” 💗

Episode Playlist: All About Annie, Sinners & Black Motherhood Companion Playlist

IMPORTANT CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Black Mama Creative Week: June 24th - June 30th
• One-on-One Joy Immersion Sessions with Thea Monyee
• In an effort to expand knowledge and combat misinformation and disinformation, we create a syllabus (s/o to Melissa Harris Perry) which is a list of references/sources for our listeners to dive into.  This list includes any books, videos, podcasts, etc. that we've mentioned in the episode or that will help you gain a well-informed perspective. For our full syllabus, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

EPISODES MENTIONS/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 61 - Joy and Black Motherhood

🎙️DBM Ep 62 Grief and Black Motherhood

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas

Email List | BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us or email us at [email protected].

For all links, full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,  What if I told you Black mamas aren’t superheroes, that the cape is choking us, and our backs are brittle?  What if I told you motherhood ain’t killing us, though, but the narratives we buy into hook, line, and sinker are? What if you had the option not to be the primary custodial parent?  Would you decline out of obligation to the belief that a good Black mama would never choose to leave their children in the care of others, even the other parent?  How does a Black mother respond when what’s best for her or her destiny clashes with cultural norms?  

In this Mother's Day episode, we speak with Erica Michelle Freeman of Sisters In Loss Podcast about the complexities and challenges of non-custodial parenting and Black motherhood. When Erica and her husband decided to divorce, they also agreed to shared custody.  Each parent would have primary custody for 3 years of their son Maxwell who was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy 10 years ago.

We dive into: ✨Confronting societal norms and cultural stigmas ✨Navigating health and care decisions for children with special needs as a noncustodial parent ✨Historical trauma and Black motherhood ✨Renegotiating Black motherhood

PLUS - Crystal and perimenopause are NOT friends, especially under the current administration, and Thea is in search of Jill Stein.  In our Black Mama Say segment for this episode, where we put our twist on sayings from Black mamas, and the saying we're twisting this episode is “Oh, you got time for dat.”

ABOUT ERICA M. FREEMAN

Erica M. Freeman is the Founder and CEO of Sisters in Loss, is a savvy, creative engineer, known for her results-based, no-fluff approach as a podcaster, grief educator, and motivational speaker. Sisters in Loss provides pregnancy, birth, postpartum, bereavement doula, and grief services to help women step beyond anxiety and fear and into trust and peace after loss.  Its self-titled award-winning podcast spotlights resilient Black mothers who share  intimate details of their journey to motherhood through painful, but inspirational loss and infertility stories.  Sisters in Loss has been featured in Forbes, BBC News, Black Enterprise, Women's Health, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and The White House. 

Connect with Erica M. Freeman: Instagram | Website

IMPORTANT CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Black Mama Creative Week: June 24th - June 30th Sign Up for our email list for details.

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #8 “Share Your Inspiration” 💗

Episode Playlist:  Black Mama Magic Playlist

EPISODES MENTIONS/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 56: Menopause, Black Women & Spiritual Ritual with Omisade Burney Scott 

🎙️DBM Ep 33: Haitian American Mama w/ Stepha LaFond 

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Please share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us, or email us at [email protected].

To expand knowledge and combat misinformation and disinformation, we create a syllabus (s/o to Melissa Harris Perry), a list of references/sources for our listeners to dive into.  This list includes any books, videos, podcasts, etc. that we've mentioned in the episode or that will help you gain a well-informed perspective. For our complete syllabus, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

How do we resist the urge to rescue when we’ve been taught our whole lives to be saviors?  How do we set boundaries when the world is burning? What do we do when we’ve been deemed the backbone of the community, but our backbones are brittle and breaking? Since the election, these are the questions and conversations black women have been having online and, especially, in group chats.  So, we decided to explore what this line in the sand means for Black mothers in the midst of state-sanctioned brutality.  

In this episode, Thea and I explore the parallels between domestic violence relationships and Black mothers' relationship with America.  

We dive into:

✨Why it’s more important than ever that Black mothers set boundaries 

✨The role cultural coping plays in Black mothers ignoring their needs

✨Vulnerability & why Black mothers feel we must do it all

✨What Stevie Wonder songs reflect this moment

PLUS - Thea shares a testimony about getting a new mattress, and I’m excited to share the details of our next virtual event, Down By the Riverside, during our Church Announcements, Praise Reports, and Prayer List Requests segment.  In our Black Mama Say segment for this episode, where we put our own twist on sayings from Black mamas, we do something a little different this time.  Instead of a Black Mama Say, we’re choosing theme songs to carry us through this moment.

IMPORTANT CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Black Maternal Health 2025 kicks off on April 11th
• REGISTER NOW for Down By the Riverside Sunday, April 13th, noonPT/3pm ET. Space is limited.
• To expand knowledge and combat misinformation and disinformation, we create a syllabus for each episode (s/o to Melissa Harris-Perry), a list of references/sources for our listeners to dive into.  This list includes any books, videos, podcasts, etc., that we've mentioned in the episode or that will help you gain a well-informed perspective. For our full syllabus, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #21 “My Motherhood Is Rooted In Liberation” 💗

Episode Playlist: The 92%, Boundaries & Black Motherhood Companion Playlist

EPISODES MENTIONED/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 61 Grief and Black Motherhood

🎙️DBM Ep 54: Birth Justice, Liberation & the Power of Black Midwives w/ Jamarah Amani & K.Sanderson

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Please share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us, or email us at [email protected].

For all links, complete show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What do Telvin Osborne, Black marriage, generational wealth, Altadena, data as currency, the TV show Paradise, and white women in Idaho have in common?  We cover them all in this episode.  Yup, it’s hot topics, and we got hot takes well, not hot takes.  We got Black Mama takes on all the above.  In this episode, we talk:

✨How Telvin Osborne is relevant to Black women resting ✨The real problem when it comes to  marriage & Black folx ✨Why Paradise gets kudos & white women in Idaho don’t

PLUS - we talk all things Black Maternal Health,  Roberta Flack, Thea taking on individual clients, and I share a big praise report regarding my nonprofit Creators Well during our Church announcements, praise reports, and prayer list requests segment.  In our Black Mama Say segment for this episode, where we put our twist on sayings from Black mamas and the saying we're twisting this episode is “Let me put it to you like this.”

💗Black Mama Magic Deck Card: Card #25 “Motherhood Is Not the Graveyard of Dreams” 💗

Donate to Creators Well.  Founded by Crystal Tennille Irby, Creators Well is a series of FREE interactive writing retreats and writing and performance classes for Black girls/ femmes/ non-binary/gender-expansive youth ages 12-21 that teaches and affirms the power of their voices, pen, art, and individuality.

Thea Monyee, aka the Secretary of Joy, has nine spots available for one-on-one joy exploration and three spots for couples.  Contact Thea for more details. 

EPISODES MENTIONED/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 61 Joy and Black Motherhood 🎙️DBM Ep 54: Birth Justice, Liberation & the Power of Black Midwives w/ Jamarah Amani & K.Sanderson

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us, or email us at [email protected].

AND share this episode with at least one person.  Sharing is not only caring; sharing builds community.

For all links, full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What does it mean to make it home, to create a place of rest and reprieve, joy and sanctuary, an archive of your children’s treasures?  What happens when you can’t make it home, return to your place of rest and reprieve, joy and sanctuary, a reflection of your taste and intention? What happens when the archive of your children’s treasure, what they left behind to be kept safe, is incinerated, covered in ash and your community physically fractured?  In this episode, Staci Mitchell, a mother of 3 who was born and raised in Altadena, CA, and our very own Thea Monyee recount the night the Los Angeles fires ravaged their community, watching their city burn, and the creative rebirth they’ve experienced in the wake of this nightmare.  

In this episode, we talk:

✨Mothering through displacement

✨Gentrification and anti-blackness amid natural disaster

✨The expectation of normalcy while healing from trauma

 precious commodities 

PLUS: We meet Thea’s new dog, Remy, have a church meeting during our Church announcements segment about boycotting and  Black women minding their Black business, and in our Black Mama Say segment, each of us shares the word that will guide us through the year.

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck: Card #16 “Impossible You” 💗

ABOUT STACI MITCHELL: 

The Fierce Creative With Healing Tendencies; Pan-African Studies Scholar, Theatre & Performance Artist born in LA and raised in Altadena, California. Her epistemological and pedagogical focus balances on womanism and the complex of Black\woman identity and its performativity. Staci has performed on and written for the Los Angeles theatre stage, been featured in independent film, on television, voiceover and audiobook narration. Staci is also a certified Ayurvedic yoga teacher specializing in meditation. She approaches all of these practices with deep appreciation and acknowledgment of her Afrikan ancestors who helped shape the science.

Help Staci Rebuild 

EPISODES MENTIONED/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Episode 42: Honoring Your Body, Creativity, and Embracing Motherhood on Your Own Terms featuring Staci Mitchell

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

Email List | BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us or email us at [email protected].

For all links, full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What if I told you I didn’t start a business because I wanted to be a boss? I started my business because I wanted to be free, because I saw no other path to fully realizing my dreams, and according to a 2022 article, I’m not alone in finding entrepreneurship on my liberation journey.  In the article entitled Why Black Women Are the Fastest-Growing Group of Entrepreneurs, Erica Thompson writes, “As the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, Black women say they are seeking more freedom, opportunity, fulfillment and stability. They also are escaping from discrimination and other barriers in the workplace.” In this episode, we have a raw and vulnerable conversation about Black motherhood and our entrepreneurship journeys. 

Through this honest discussion, we aim to illuminate the real experiences behind the facade of 'glamorous' entrepreneurship and provide insights for others on a similar path.

In this episode, we talk:

✨The spiritual and sometimes lonely journey of entrepreneurship

✨The pressure we put on our dreams to provide

✨Building a business in the margins as a mom when time, mental wellness, and money are precious commodities 

PLUS - We ponder what white people were doing in the 90s.

💗Black Mama Magic Card Deck Pull: Card #8 “Share Your Inspiration” 💗

Donate to Creators Well.  Founded by Crystal Tennille Irby, Creators Well is a series of FREE interactive writing retreats and writing and performance classes for Black girls/ femmes/ non-binary/gender-expansive youth ages 12-21 that teaches and affirms the power of their voices, pen, art, and individuality.

Episode Playlist: Black Healing Playlist curated by Dem Black Mamas on Spotify

EPISODES MENTIONED/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️ DBM Ep 61: Black Motherhood & Joy

🎙️DBM Ep 15: Black Mama Creative 

 🎙️Shaping the Shift: We Are Eternal with Renee Marie 

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas:

BluSky | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us or email us at [email protected].

For all links, full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What if I told you to offer grief a seat at the table?  What if I told you grief has no other duties except to be with you?  It has nowhere to be and is not bound by time.  Grief is patient.  Grief is relentless, and as Akilah S. Richards, our guest for this episode and a DBM fave, says, “Grief is not something to be fixed but something for you to learn to be more skilled at processing.” Akilah is a mother, partner, liberationist and author of Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing.  

She is now diving deep into grief work and in this episode we talk: ✨Grief, language and the body ✨Grief and generational shifts ✨Grief and creative projects ✨And of course grief, Black women and the political landscape

Plus Thea uses a Negro spiritual to describe Black women’s current mindset and Crystal is learning sign language and attempts to teach Thea. 

💗Black Mama Magic Card: Card #25 - Motherhood is not the graveyard of dreams💗

EPISODES MENTIONS/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 61: Black Motherhood & Joy

🎙️Shaping The Shift:  The Wild Body With Jessica Schafer

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

ABOUT Akilah Richards:

Akilah S. Richards is a mother, partner and liberationist. As founder of Raising Free People Network and author of Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work, Akilah S. Richards partners with co-conspirators to challenge and encourage social justice-minded people to explore privilege and power in their relationships with personal leadership and all relationships. These days find Akilah tapped into the wisdom she gathered from her family’s transition from schoolishness to confident autonomy. She is savoring her life’s lessons after nearly a decade of location independence, and eight years of being invited into various conversations about intergenerational community care across the U.S., Southern Africa, and Jamaica (where Akilah is from). She guides discussions about how unschooling skills and other forms of decoloniality are shaping families and other cultures of leadership, change-work, and love.

In addition to private coaching and public speaking, she facilitates trainings, small-group experiences, and consultations that help resolve the ways that unexamined experiences with bias and oppression disrupt families’ and organization’s capacity to sustain cultures of belonging.

Connect with Akilah: Grief Circle | Community & Support | Instagram

Connect with Dem Black Mamas: YouTube | Email List | Patreon | Blusky

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us or email us at [email protected].

For full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com

Dear Mama,

What if I told you I didn’t think I had the words for the intro of this episode because we recorded it before the election, and after November 5th, joy was THE LAST THING I wanted to talk about?  I wish I could say thinking of our ancestors pulled me through, but the truth is reaching forward in time helped me more than reaching back, and now more than ever, we are going to need joy not to feel happy but because, as Thea Monyee, one of the cohost of this podcast, who will be guiding us through the Joy Assessment, says "Joy makes things clear," and we, particularly Black mothers, need to get REAL CLEAR RIGHT NOW and being committed to joy, being centered on joy requires us to tell the truth to ourselves, about our relationships, about what is real and what is not, what is serving us and most importantly how we are not serving ourselves and that allows us to get really, really clear about what we are supposed to be doing, how to mind our business and what business we should be minding, and focused on in the time that we are about to enter.

In this episode we delve into the social-political barriers of joy and how accountability intersects with the pursuit of personal joy. Thea Monyee introduces the groundbreaking "Joy Assessment," created with the Blacker The Brain cohort, as a tool for Black folx to reclaim joy as a means for liberation.

In this episode, we talk:

✨The groundbreaking Joy Assessment

✨The difference between joy and happiness

✨Radical honesty and spiritual bypassing

✨Joy as tool of parenting from a place of liberation and not fear

💗Black Mama Magic Card: Card #10 - Lay Your Burdens on the Altar of Love💗

Episode Playlist: Blackest Holiday Playlist Eva curated by us on Spotify

EPISODES MENTIONS/RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:

🎙️DBM Ep 59: Black Motherhood, Myths & Matrescence w/ Stepha LaFond

✨PATREON BONUS CONTENT - Pre-Show Shenanigans✨

ABOUT THE BLACKER THE BRAIN:

Thea Monyee aka the Secretary of Joy and the founder of The Blacker the Brain which is an ongoing campaign, conversation and cohort created to make mental health inclusive and expansive for Black bodies by teaching practitioners to unlearn harmful ideas, practices, and policies, and empowering potential clients with language, a full understanding of their rights, and a joy centered framework for their healing within in an oppressive society. 

Connect with The Blacker The Brain: Instagram | Website

Take the Joy Assessment

🔗 Connect with Dem Black Mamas

Instagram Patreon YouTube

🗣️Engage: This is a conversation.  Speak back to us!  Share your thoughts about the episode using the hashtag #DemBlackMamas, DM us or email us at [email protected].

For full show notes & transcript, check out our website:  demblackmamas.com