There is a particular kind of strength Black women know well.
Keep going. Take care of everybody. Handle what needs handling. Show up for work. Show up for family. Carry the grief. Carry the expectations. Carry yourself like everything is fine.
But what happens when the body says enough?
That question sits at the center of When the Body Speaks, an intimate literary salon bringing authors Ber-Henda Williams and Carina Jackson together in Southfield this September for an evening about the stories women carry — and what can happen when they finally begin listening to themselves.
The gathering takes place Friday, Sept. 18, at Jo’s Upscale Resale in Southfield and is built around conversation rather than the traditional author-on-a-stage format. Williams and Jackson will use their books and personal experiences as starting points for a larger discussion about grief, caregiving, boundaries, illness, spirituality and the complicated relationship Black women can have with being “strong.”
When strength starts costing something
Williams’ My Body, My Altar considers the body as more than something that simply gets us through the day.
Her story moves through fibroids, surgery, grief, workplace spiritual rupture, dreams and ancestral transition, examining the Black woman’s body as a place where memory, resistance and spirituality can live.
Jackson approaches the conversation from another direction in From Big Ma to Modern Day High Priestess.
The youngest of 15 children, Jackson eventually became her family’s matriarch. Her story examines what can happen when caregiving becomes over-functioning and being dependable slowly becomes indistinguishable from sacrificing yourself.
Then her body interrupted the pattern.
After a serious fall and the discovery of a tumor, Jackson began reconsidering an idea many women inherit early: that strength can be measured by how much you’re capable of carrying.
Together, the two stories create a question bigger than either book.
What if putting something down isn’t weakness?
More conversation than book talk
That idea shapes the evening itself.
Instead of simply reading excerpts and signing books, Williams and Jackson have organized the conversation around five movements: Altar, Burden, Interruption, Revelation and Reclamation.
Each asks something different.
What shaped us?
What have we carried?
When did life force us to stop?
What did we discover when it did?
And perhaps most importantly: How do we live differently once we know?
The format includes author readings, audience conversation, music, food, cocktails and mocktails, book signing and shopping inside Jo’s Upscale Resale.
Attendance is intentionally limited to roughly 35 to 45 people, creating something closer to a living-room conversation than a traditional literary event.
And maybe that’s the right setting for this particular conversation.
Because some realizations don’t arrive as grand declarations.
Sometimes it’s exhaustion you can’t explain.
Sometimes it’s grief you’ve been too busy to feel.
Sometimes it’s the boundary you finally set.
Sometimes it’s realizing that being the person everyone can depend on has left you with nobody taking care of you.
And sometimes your body has been telling you something for years.
You finally get quiet enough to hear it.
When the Body Speaks
Friday, Sept. 18, 2026
7–10 p.m.
VIP admission begins at 6:30 p.m.
Jo’s Upscale Resale
Southfield, Michigan
General admission: $55
VIP experience: $111
Attendance is limited to approximately 35–45 guests.
