Southern Black Girls Founder LaTosha Brown Brings Joy and Justice Tour to Florida

Southern Black Girls and Women's Consortium moved its 2026 Joy and Justice Tour through Florida this weekend, with stops in Fort Lauderdale on 10 July and Eatonville on 11 July. The tour is not a conventional conference series. It is a nine-city mobilization built around resources, wellness, community connection and advocacy for Black girls, women and femme-identifying youth across the South.

The health frame is explicit. Southern Black Girls launched the tour in response to intersecting crises affecting Black women and girls, including gender-based violence, maternal health disparities and gaps in philanthropic investment. The organization says Black women are more than twice as likely to be murdered by men as white women, and that they die from pregnancy-related causes at more than three times the rate of white women. Maternity-care closures compound the pressure on communities already facing uneven access to care.

LaTosha Brown, visionary founder of Southern Black Girls, describes joy as both strategy and intervention. That language matters because the tour is trying to avoid a narrow crisis-only model. Programming includes interactive workshops, wellness activities, community resources, live entertainment, safety resources and advocacy support. The organization is pairing the language of emergency with the practical need for gathering spaces where people can find help, rest, information and connection.

The Florida dates are part of a broader Southern route. The tour launched in Jackson, Mississippi, around Juneteenth weekend, continued to New Orleans, then moved to Fort Lauderdale and Eatonville before later stops in Louisville, Richmond, Charleston, Columbia and Charlotte. The itinerary reflects the organization's regional focus across 13 Southern states, where it says less than one percent of the region's $4.8 billion in philanthropic investment reaches Black women and girls.

The funding context matters as much as the tour schedule. Southern Black Girls was founded in 2017 by LaTosha Brown, Felecia Lucky, Alice Eason Jenkins and Margo Miller. The organization says it has awarded more than $11.4 million to more than 250 organizations and provided more than $600,000 in micro-grants to more than 1,000 girls through initiatives including the Black Girl Joy Challenge.

Its Black Girls Defense Fund adds another layer. The expanded 2026 grant cycle offers awards ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 for organizations working in health and safety, justice, carceral reform and restorative justice for Black girls, women and femme-identifying youth. Southern Black Girls connects that grantmaking to adultification bias, school discipline, juvenile justice and healthcare systems, arguing that harm begins early and follows girls into adulthood.

For SheMeansNews readers, the story is a reminder that women's health is not only clinical. It includes safety, maternity access, local services, community funding and whether philanthropic money reaches the people closest to the work. The Joy and Justice Tour is founder-led, regionally specific and tied to measurable grantmaking, which makes it more than a symbolic roadshow.