Bid on #BlackGirlMagic: EBay Partners With Black Girls Rock!

When Beverly Bond talks about the magic of black girls and women, her enthusiasm is contagious. The celebrity DJ-model-producer (and much more) shifted the paradigm in our favor in 2006 when she founded Black Girls Rock!, the award show and nonprofit organization that has since earned worldwide acclaim.

Fittingly, Bond literally holds the trademark to “Black Girl Magic”—a phrase she recently discovered may have originated in friend and author Joan Morgan’s ’90s hip-hop feminist tome When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. Bond loves that the expression has become a recent addition to our common lexicon about black womanhood, as she has made it her mission to help as many girls find their magic as possible.

Now eBay is recognizing and supporting Bond’s efforts by partnering with Black Girls Rock! for an epic inaugural auction to raise funds for the organization in honor of Black History Month. Launched on Feb. 5, the auction features such gems as a pair of worn and signed ballet shoes from Misty Copeland, coveted red-carpet access to the next Black Girls Rock! award show and signed copies of Bond’s upcoming Black Girls Rock! book, which debuts on Feb. 27 and is already the No. 1 book in preorders on Amazon.com—as well as the first prize to sell out on the eBay auction. As Bond tells The Glow Up:

You know, I’m just really grateful—it’s exciting to see that people are receiving it so well. But also, it speaks to the importance of the message continuing—the need for the message … In 2006, when I started Black Girls Rock!, there wasn’t this celebration, acknowledgment [or] inclusion of black women’s narratives, stories, beauty, diversity, nuances—it just wasn’t there in media—in fact, it was completely the opposite, if anything.

And so to see where the world has come to now, in this time, and to see all this “Black Girl Magic” surfacing—or people discovering [it]—it’s just an incredible thing, to know that Black Girls Rock! was very much at the forefront of this movement. It means a lot, but I don’t get fooled by trends … I feel that the work needs to continue there, and I know that we have to continue to push our message, our narrative, and keep our presence in the forefront. We matter and our voices matter, and our accomplishments matter, our contributions matter, our achievements matter.

Supporting the accomplishments and achievements of future generations is at the heart of Black Girls Rock!, and 100 percent of proceeds from the auction will go back into the organization’s programs, like the Black Girls Lead conference and camps, which have yielded proven results through mentorship, as Bond tells us:

We are really giving girls tools that they need to empower themselves to take their best to their “bestest”; to go to their next level. And so it’s been really successful. We have a lot of incredible girls that have gone through our programs that stay connected with us, that are now in college. Some of them are graduating [and] going into the business world now. So you know, just to see this work over this time, and to see girls that we’ve literally been surrogate mothers to, in a sense, grow into these incredible young women, it’s been amazing to see.

To understand the potential impact of a juggernaut like eBay joining forces with Black Girls Rock!, to date, eBay for Charity has raised nearly $810 million for participating charities, raising $84 million in 2017 alone.

The auction is live until Feb. 15, and the following items and experiences are still up for grabs:

Ballet shoes worn and signed by Misty Copeland.

VIP Experience at the 2018 Black Girls Rock! Awards in New York—you will walk the red carpet alongside stars and have VIP seating to watch the entire show with some of the hottest celebs!

Not in the market for some of the bigger-ticket items in the auction? EBay for Charity and Black Girls Rock! also partnered with fashion-accessory brand Pintrill to create exclusive enamel pins that are being sold on the platform throughout February. One says “Black Girls Rock!” and the other says “WESLAY.” Each pin is available for $15, or you can purchase the pair for $25. You can also add an additional donation to your purchase during checkout. Remember—100 percent of proceeds benefit Black Girls Rock!

Bond hopes that this auction will be the first of many as she continues to grow Black Girls Rock! and ensure that #BlackGirlMagic remains more than a catchphrase, hashtag or trend. She’s constantly strategizing new ways to do the work of elevating us—and hopes that more will do the same:

It’s easier to do the work than we think it is. And I think that sometimes people get so caught up in the idea [that] it takes so much to start a charity or start a mentoring program. And it really just takes whatever knowledge and skill that you have, using that to empower the next person.

You don’t have to know everything, but you might know somebody that knows something else, and that’s what I’ve been able to do in this time of building Black Girls Rock!—both the award show and the nonprofit. I’ve been able to kind of tap into the community and tap into our village to help me bring this to life and help me do this work. And I think that eBay has joined our village, and I think that’s the beautiful part about this partnership.

The Glow Up tip: The Black Girls Rock! auction is live now through Feb. 15; Pintrill pins are available throughout the month of February. To bid and purchase, visit eBay.com/BlackGirlsRock.

You can also preorder Beverly Bond’s new book, Black Girls Rock!, out Feb. 27. This groundbreaking book features a diverse array of incredible black women, including Michelle Obama, Angela Davis, Shonda Rhimes, Misty Copeland, Yara Shahidi and Mary J. Blige.