Regional Offerings
Our regional offerings grow out of our local commitments, extending the wisdom, practices, and lessons learned in Durham to communities across the South. We hold in-person gatherings and virtual learning spaces that create room for shared reflection, relationship-building, and collective imagination across distance and place. Shaped by a belief that land holds memory, this work honors the distinct histories and cultures of each community we encounter, especially those rooted in historic Black neighborhoods. Looking ahead, we hope to convene retreats for community development practitioners serving across the Southern region—spaces for rest, learning, and mutual encouragement. Together, these offerings invite learning across difference, the sharing of resources, and the cultivation of relationships that strengthen the South as a whole—rooted in care, responsibility, and a deep love for the places we call home.
BLK South Book Clubs are seasonal reading communities rooted in the South, created to gather people across the region—and beyond—around stories that shape how we see ourselves, our histories, and one another. We center books that have been challenged or banned, along with works that carry Black memory, place, and care, believing that reading together is both a formative and communal practice. These gatherings create space for slow reading, honest conversation, and shared reflection, inviting participants to learn from one another while staying grounded in the land and stories that hold us. Whether joining from down the street or across the country, readers are welcomed into a community that treats books not just as texts to be consumed, but as companions that help us remember, imagine, and live more attentively.
BLK South Book Club
Books We’ve Read:
The South Is Sacred:
A Virtual Symposium
The South Is Sacred is a virtual symposium hosted by BLK South—an evening of conversation, reflection, and connection centered on faith, freedom, and funding the future of home. Gathering online with friends from across the South and beyond, we’ll think like gardeners: honoring those who have tended Southern soil with their hands, prayers, and imagination, and asking what it means to call the South sacred ground again. The evening includes movement updates and introductions to partners shaping this work in Durham’s Historic Hayti District, followed by a live, generative conversation with local and regional renown leaders across the South. This isn’t a typical panel—it’s a collective reflection that opens into small circles for shared listening, honest response, and the planting of new seeds of relationship and imagination. Come ready to listen like a scholar and respond like a gardener, tending the sacred ground we share.
CCDA Networking
In 2025, we hosted a networking session for the Christian Community Development Association, gathering practitioners from across the country who are engaged in community development work within historic Black neighborhoods. CCDA is a conference we have attended every year since 2022, and it has deeply shaped our commitment to place-based, neighborhood-centric practices—grounding our work in proximity, long-term presence, and accountability to community. Hosting this session was a natural extension of that formation, creating space for relationship-building, shared learning, and mutual encouragement among those doing this work on the ground. As we remain connected to the CCDA network, our desire is to continue offering networking sessions and workshops that support practitioners, strengthen relationships across regions, and contribute to the collective wisdom of this movement.