In this course, we will explore Black women’s culture in the U.S. with respect to being targets of systemic violence, truth-telling, community protection, contemplations inspired by Black women, power and how to use it, spirituality and how to support it, music, especially the music of India.Arie, politics, democracy, pain, and pleasure.  This course is inspired by the work of Black women mayors who held their cities down, and the opportunity for Black women leaders to engage more with Black women’s spirituality, and vice versa.

In 2024, after hearing and reading about the high-profile and high-stakes testimonies of university presidents before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on antisemitism, and the resignations that followed, combined with my reflections on the precarious roles Black women mayors have played over the past several years, and the ways Black women lawyers are engaged in democracy protection, I declared 2024 as The Year of the Black Woman (YBW), and shared that declaration with a few friends.  Now, I am doing my part to put that declaration into this course.

Institutional leadership is hard on a sister’s spirit.  U.S. presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris will reflect these realities back to us. The purpose of this course is to facilitate enhancing spiritual direction knowledge and skills for students already experienced in providing spiritual support to African-American women.  The “enhancement” takes into account the dawning of Black women’s political and juridical visibility and leadership, and intellectual power and influence, while also carrying the burden of anti-woke, anti-inclusion, and antisemitism scapegoating while enduring attacks on their intellectual endeavors.  This course will be taught through a womanist collective pedagogy that will enhance our understanding of what it means to be a Black woman in the U.S. today, and how to appropriately support her spiritual life in her emerging visibility and civic leadership, even if she is not a visible civil leader, because no matter what role she is in, she may be perceived as a threat.

Dr. Ayo will be offering this course for $750.

For those wishing to obtain a Continuing Education Certificate, the cost will be $850.

This course is open to anyone who provides or has provided spiritual support to Black women.  Consequently, the students in this course may come from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, body types, political opinions, worldviews, religions, and identities.  We will welcome diversity and students who can respect differences.  With that said, every student must already be experienced in providing spiritual support to Black women.

Dr. Ayo (Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., Th.D.) is a spiritual director and pastoral counselor in private practice. She is a Community Dharma Leader trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.  Ayo earned her J.D. at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, her M.A. in Culture and Spirituality at Holy Names University, and her Th.D. at Columbia Theological Seminary.  Her certificate in spiritual direction was earned at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA.  Ayo did her post-doctoral work at Harvard Divinity School. 

Ayo is the author of Dearly Beloved: Prince, Spirituality, and This Thing Called Life (April, 2025), Songbird Birdsong: The Story (2024), Casting Indra’s Net: Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community (2023), two womanist books, Object Relations, Buddhism, and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology (2018) and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care (2020), and other writings.  She began educating Black women in 1997 when she was a financial advisor.

Ayo was a scholar-in-residence at University of the West and an assistant professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.  She is an instructor with the Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy program offered through the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) https://acpe.edu/programs/spiritual-integrated-psychotherapy .