On April 20, 2022, Black Women Radicals (BWR) and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) launched “Ongea Mama” — an online series dedicated to centering the voices, strategies, and lived realities of African feminists across the continent and the diaspora.

“Ongea Mama,” meaning “Speak Mama” in Swahili, is grounded in deep inquiry. The series asks:

• What does it mean for African, Black, and Afro-descendant feminists to be in dialogue with one another?
• How do we learn from one another politically, culturally, personally, and spiritually?
• How do we move through historical and contemporary tensions to build solidarity, sisterhood, and siblinghood across borders?
• How can feminist dialogue serve as political education for global strategy and movement-building?

The launch event, titled “African Feminist Politics, Leadership, and Participation,” examined the state of African feminist organizing and the role African feminists continue to play in shaping movements both on the continent and transnationally.

This conversation brought together powerful thinkers and organizers, including:

Hakima Abaas
Dr. Stella Nyanzi
Maie Panaga
Dr. Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed
Dr. Amina Mama
Nala Simone Toussaint

Together, we interrogate feminist leadership, political participation, diasporic identity, and the evolving architecture of Black and African feminist movements.

As a diasporic Black trans woman of Caribbean lineage, I contribute a lens that bridges spirituality, trans politics, and global feminist solidarity — asking how liberation work must expand to hold gender-expansive leadership within African feminist frameworks.

This dialogue is not just intellectual. It is relational. It is strategic. It is intergenerational.

It is a call to speak — and to listen — across difference.