November 2025: Gathering to Discern Where We Go From Here?

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

A Message from Our President/CEO

November 4th was Election Day 2025, and I hope you felt empowered to get out the vote!

As I wrote this, we were in the middle of several key elections. And still! We are barreling through a significant level of political hostility and volatility aimed directly at our existence as Black women, as community organizers, as people committed to health equity and justice. In his final manuscript, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: "In the days ahead we must not consider it unpatriotic to raise certain basic questions about our national character." So we ask: Where do we go from here? Chaos or community?

As of November 1, 2025, I stepped into the role of President/CEO of CCS2S. For 16 seasons, CCS2S has been a space where Black women gather to speak truth about our health, our bodies, and the systems that fail us. We have supported over 1,000 Black women. Over 300 leading health experts who are also Black women in our locality have shared their knowledge and co-built power within our community.

Our community leadership is forming a newly reformed board of directors to build infrastructure that outlasts any single administration, any single political moment, any single attack on our humanity. We will introduce them in a few weeks even as we continue expanding our leadership circles!

This Sunday, November 9th 2-4pm, we gather for Part II of our listening series with two Black women psychologists as thought partners. They will help us hold the question Dr. King posed in 1967 during profound (inter)national crisis: Where do we go from here?

Our mental health and collective wellbeing are under assault. We need spaces to process, to grieve, to strategize, and to heal. Our guest psychologists bring expertise in trauma, community resilience, and Black women's mental health. They are here to hold space with us as we grapple with what it means to survive—and thrive—in a country that denies our humanity. Our present future requires we forge forward defying gravity! Let’s talk about it!

Dr. King's question was not rhetorical. Where do we go from here? demands an answer. The answer is not found in isolation or silence. It is found in community.

At CCS2S, we ask hard questions about healthcare systems that fail us, policies that harm us, and a country built on our labor but not our protection. We build systems of care distinct from what the government can provide. We rest because rest is resistance. We gather because gathering is survival.

Join us in conversation with Dr. Terry Sass and Dr. Courtney Louis where we’ll gather in a circle to talk about the importance of our mental health, and map the possibilities for going deeper in community with one another - one story and moment of self-advocacy at a time towards collective healing.

Reserved for Black women!

RSVP here

See you soon!

Shanaé Burch, Ed.D

President/CEO, Community Conversations: Sister to Sister

Photo By Wren Rene

P.S. We're now a 501(c)(3)! Your tax-deductible donation helps us sustain 16 years of community-powered health equity work and expand our reach. Support CCS2S today as we continue creating brave spaces for the conversations that heal and transform.