Black women build a legacy of empowerment

Julianna Brown, Contributing Writer

Ladies Leading Legacy is a collegiate organization dedicated to fostering personal, professional and academic growth of women of color. Their mission is to empower and inspire through education, mentorship and community engagement, according to the Ladies Leading Legacy Instagram account. 

The first order of business was to contact elementary and middle schools to provide mentorship to Black female youth, according to the organization’s advisor, Yuroba Butler. By the fall of 2025, the group hopes to get the word out on campus by collaborating with other organizations and facilitating events. 

“I’d like to see the numbers of young ladies grow that are members of the organization,” Butler said. 

Joanna Ezzard, president and third-year marketing student, launched the new VCU club Ladies Leading Legacy. 

Ezzard said they desired to give back because of those who poured into her as a young child and hopes that one day the organization will create a legacy that will branch out to several universities. 

The organization works to create an environment where Black female students can seek assistance with any issue, according to Ezzard.

“This is a space that is needed not only on VCU’s campus but everywhere,” Ezzard said. 

Ladies Leading Legacy is a space where Black female students can receive interview preparation, information on career planning and discover more about niche issues that usually impact women, like losing a job because of pregnancy, according to Ezzard. 

“As opposed to just doing a resume workshop or a how to dress workshop, we would actually sit down with people and help them with their actual resume, you know, talking to them about their skills and things they could do to get themselves on the right track and actively setting up the next steps as opposed to kind of just giving some ideas and then sending them on their way,” Ezzard said. 

Ezzard said the organization aims to “cut the middle-man out” by creating hands-on active engagement similar to VCU’s present organization, Developing Men of Color. 

Ladies Leading Legacy was thought up a few years ago when they communicated about VCU’s lack of a women’s version of the Developing Men of Color organization, according to secretary and third-year political science student Ayomileke Ogungbade. 

“I remember just two years ago and last year we constantly talked about how there’s a DMC but there’s not a woman’s version. We tried joining this club called Leadership for Women of Color,” Ogungbade said. “But we left feeling like there was a need for more of a hands-on approach.” 

Ogungbade said she was overjoyed once Ezzard decided to follow through on the idea fully. 

“When we were younger in elementary school. There was this program called ‘All About Me’ and it was for fourth and fifth graders. High schoolers would come and they would come to mentor us and we would do activities with them and honestly, that’s something that impacted us, we talk about it to this day.” Ogungbade said.