The Cities We Dream In: A Global Retreat Series for Black Rest, Memory, and Liberation.

The Cities We Dream In is a global retreat series created for Black American changemakers who are searching for space to breathe, remember themselves, and imagine new ways of living and leading. The series centers rest as a strategy and travel as an invitation to step outside the psychological noise, hypervigilance, and urgency that shape life in the United States. In these gatherings, we explore cities that have long served as portals of possibility and expansion for the African diaspora.

When Going Becomes Returning: Sanctuary and Self-Reclamation

For generations, Black artists, thinkers, and movement leaders have crossed oceans to reclaim their voice and well-being. James Baldwin found new language for love and liberation in Paris. Josephine Baker created a life of acclaim and agency in France. Nina Simone and Alvin Ailey discovered creative freedom throughout Europe. Angela Davis forged global networks for justice. Tina Turner built a life of joy and sovereignty in Switzerland. Assata Shakur found safety and sanctuary abroad when her freedom and life were at risk. Their journeys remind us that leaving is not abandonment. It can be a return to self, to dignity, to a life shaped by choice rather than constraint.

Each retreat in The Cities We Dream In series is intentionally intimate and rooted in cultural, historical, and spiritual grounding. Participants walk neighborhoods, engage with local artists and cultural stewards, learn from historians and healers, and also rest. There is room for stillness, for laughter, for quiet mornings and unhurried conversations. These retreats reconnect us with ancestral memory by placing us in environments that reflect possibility rather than survival.

In Portugal, we honor the past and practice a gentler present

The Portugal edition invites participants to explore both Lisbon and the Algarve, where the history of the Atlantic meets contemporary Black presence and community. We sit with the complexity of colonization and resistance, and we create space for belonging, imagination, and joy. More than anything, we practice a new pace. One that honors our bodies, our dreams, and our dignity.

The Cities We Dream In is for leaders who carry much and give much. It is for those ready to step into spaciousness and wholeness. It is a reminder that freedom is not abstract. It is a way of living.

We travel to remember. We travel to restore. We travel to reclaim our dreams.