The Black Girls’ 100th Psalm for Gratitude and Gathering

This meditation was written for the November 2026 issue of Bloompring Illuminated, the Colored Girls Lieration Lab newsletter. The poem reinterprets the Psalm 100 and invites us to center Black women using the words of our literary ancestors. Italicized text links to further reading from Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, Margaret Walker, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mari Evans. Click here for the full newsletter.

Psalm 100: A psalm for giving grateful praise.

1 Wear your joy on your sleeve, girl! Be unapologetically loud about the bliss you have and the blessings you’re praying for. Letthe joy in your feetspread to the ends of the earth.

2 Sing a Black girl’s song! Greet God with your song of life. Sing a righteous gospel of the gladness you feel coming and the sadness you’re leaving behind.

3 Black girls are from God, of God, and for God. We are her people. Laugh and dance and sing and play! Rest knowing that she is watching and guiding us to lush, green, fruitful futures.

4 When Black girls gather, God is there with us. Only we can say when and where we enter. Thank God when you’re in her presence. Praise God when we’re in community with her and each other. 

5 God’s love for Black girls is beyond all definition, defying place and time and circumstance. She cared for the Black girls that came before you, and she will care for the Black girls that come after you. God wants your highest good. Look on her and be renewed.