OUR MISSION
The Interracial Sisterhood Coalition heals divides and builds Beloved Community among women of different ethnicities, identities, generations, classes, abilities, faiths, sexualities, and regions of the United States. Trans women and gender-expansive people are welcome.
OUR VISION
We envision women self-organizing Interracial Sisterhood Circles in every county of the United States, a group of women of different ethnicities and generations who commit to meeting on a monthly basis for mutual aid, political education and advocacy, and joy.
OUR FOUNDER
Hi, I'm Karen Fleshman, antiracism educator, single mom, caregiver to my mom, and founder of Racy Conversations and the Interracial Sisterhood Coalition.
For a GenX white woman named Karen, I've had an unusual life. After growing up in a small, almost entirely white community that had been a Sundown Town, I attended Mount Holyoke College, where I first experienced interracial sisterhood.
Throughout my career, I worked for organizations where most of my colleagues were people of the Global Majority. I made many mistakes and caused harm to my coworkers, my team members, and the people we served.
Fortunately, I worked for women of the Global Majority, great role models and mentors who gave me honest feedback on how to show up better. As a youth worker, I mentored many young adults of color, and they gave me feedback too. My mentees became some of my best mentors.
In 2014, I was deeply impacted by Black Lives Matter protestors standing up to tear gas in Ferguson. I decided to stand up too. I left an abusive marriage and joined the protests. Listening to young Black women's stories of workplace harm, often by women who look like me, made me stop preparing young adults of color for the workplace and start preparing the workplace for young adults of color. I founded Racy Conversations, and I facilitate antiracism workshops at workplaces throughout the country.
I study racism. I read the books and listen to the scholars, and I have experienced my greatest growth listening to my friends across difference. The more I learn about the history of white supremacy and patriarchy in this country, the more determined I am to heal racial divides among women, so we can break the cycle.
I live in the Bay Area, a global majority region in a global majority state, and still our social circles remain segregated. Nine times out of ten, when a white friend invites me to something, almost everyone there is white. When a Black friend invites me to something, I am one of maybe two white women in the room.
To heal racial divides among women, I believe we have to share space and listen to each other's stories. So I began organizing interracial sisterhood events across the country. Women of all ethnicities are welcome. Speakers share their stories and ask questions that every woman answers in one-on-one conversations, switching partners several times. What comes out of it is greater self-awareness, and a shared understanding of our lives across difference.
During the pandemic we moved online, and we kept hearing the same thing: we need more time. So in December 2023 we held the first Interracial Sisterhood Retreat in Miami. Then San Francisco in 2024, and Barbados in 2025. Spaces for celebration, reflection, and much-needed grounding, where we envision the future we want for ourselves and for the generations coming after us.
Today, the Interracial Sisterhood Coalition gathers women across ethnicities and generations at evenings on the Bay, in Brooklyn, and at retreats in beautiful places. We are truly an intergenerational organization. At our last event, women ranged in age from 19 to 89, and four mothers brought their daughters. I host free White Women Town Halls for white women ready to do our own work, and I lead Toward Sisterhood, a six-month program for white women learning to build real trust across difference.
Women in Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and Texas have written asking how to start circles in their own communities, and that is what we are building next.
Recently, my dream of cofacilitating an interracial sisterhood circle at a music festival came true when my friend and mentor Linda Parker Pennington invited me to cofacilitate with her at the 2026 Fillmore Jazz Festival, at the Fillmore Heritage Center.
This space is ours to define. It is ours to heal, and ours to build together. Re-center love. Re-center our humanity. Co-create a space where we can be ourselves and experience liberation, joy, and peace together.
Thank you for checking us out and would love to see you soon and listen to your story.
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