The 2022 Black Girl Magic Conference took place at Madison College Thursday to inspire, uplift, and fellowship with future Black female leaders.
Madison365 reports the fifth annual day-long retreat brought 600 fourth through eighth-grade Black girls from the Madison, Oregon, and Middleton districts together. The inaugural event in 2018 had just 80 Black girls participate, showing how successful the event has become.
“It’s an amazing experience. The energy of the girls is just something that is unmatched. It feels like a marathon over the day, but with positive, great energy all day long,” Rosa Thompson
, the founder of the Black Girl Magic Conference, said according to NBC 15.The event allows young Black girls to meet and connect with local Black female leaders to see successful women who look like them. The morning began with a fitness class to energize everyone for the day followed by breakout sessions led by Black female entrepreneurs, city, and community leaders.
“One of my favorite things is when the girls get off the bus, and they come in, and they’re just so excited, and they’re really happy
to be there,” Thompson, who also serves as executive director of Black Girl Magic Educational Services Inc told Madison365. “And then they’re seeing girls from other schools that they know and it’s just like a great feeling to see just so many of our girls so excited to be in the building. So we’re really looking forward to that.”The conference featured a litany of local Black professional women who shared their experiences and hosted breakout sessions, including Capital Times Angelica Euseary, Dr. Christina Outlay, Kyra Johnson, founder and executive director of KLJ Movement Inc., and keynote speaker Kheris Rogers, an entrepreneur, fashion designer and CEO of the brand, Flexin’ In My Complexion.
“I love seeing the girls, especially the girls that I’ve taught, and seeing them grow up or girls from year to year.,” Thompson told Madison365. “And now that we’ve been doing year-round programming, it’s so great to see them in their element at school because we usually you know, they just come to us. So seeing them come together and interact with each other … it’s just really fun to watch.”