Defining Love Community Salon: Black Love in All Its Forms

Black love is romantic, familial, communal, spiritual, creative, political, platonic, ancestral, and so much more.

This Defining Love Community Salon asks us to consider how these different forms of Black love shape one another, which forms receive the most attention, and which we may overlook.

The Question Guiding Our Conversation

How do the many forms of Black love weave through our lives, and which do we cherish, nurture, or yearn to experience?

Together, we'll explore this question through the perspectives of Black Love Day founder Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi and romance author and cultural anthropologist Nikki Payne, considering how love is expressed, practiced, celebrated, and sometimes overlooked across different relationships and communities.

About the Evening

The evening will include a screening of the Defining Love: Voices of Black D.C. proof of concept, a reading from The Black Love Book, a moderated conversation featuring Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi, founder of Black Love Day, and Nikki Payne, Black romance author and cultural anthropologist, and space for the audience to reflect on the many ways Black love appears in our lives and in the stories we tell.

This is the last currently scheduled salon in the fall series, but the conversation, filmmaking, fundraising, and community-building around Defining Love will continue.

Thursday, October 29, 2026
6:30–8:30 PM
Busboys and Poets — Anacostia
Marion Barry Jr. Room
Washington, D.C.

Guest Speakers

Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi — Founder of Black Love Day

Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi founded Black Love Day in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Through her work, she has advanced Black love as a practice of healing, reconciliation, cultural connection, and collective responsibility. She is also the author of The Black Love Book, which explores the principles and practices associated with Black Love Day.

Nikki Payne — Black Romance Author and Cultural Anthropologist

Nikki Payne is a romance novelist and cultural anthropologist whose work explores Black love, relationships, identity, and belonging. Through her storytelling, she brings humor, cultural insight, and fresh perspectives to the ways Black people experience and imagine romantic love.

What to expect

• Time to arrive and connect with other attendees
• Defining Love proof-of-concept screening
• Reading from The Black Love Book
• Moderated conversation with Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi and Nikki Payne
• Audience participation
• Salon raffle drawing

Salon raffle

Three attendees will win a prize at this salon:

• 1 gift card winner
• 1 winner of an 18×24 Defining Love: Voices of Black D.C. poster
• 1 winner of the 3rd edition of The Black Love Book e-book

Register for and attend this salon to be entered into its drawing.

No purchase or donation necessary. Donations do not increase your chances of winning.

About Defining Love: Voices of Black D.C.

Defining Love: Voices of Black D.C. is a documentary-in-progress gathering Black Washingtonians’ reflections on love through the five tenets of Black Love Day: Creator, Self, Family, Community, and Black Diaspora.

The project is produced and directed by Zoë Poindexter through Black Love Documentary LLC and is funded in part by a grant from HumanitiesDC.