We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kratina Baker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kratina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The Radical Southern Belle was born out of a need to reclaim Black Southern narratives—not as a place we escaped from, but as a place where we build power.

For too long, people have talked about the South like it’s a lost cause—especially when it comes to politics. The dominant narrative has been that the South is backwards, that it will never change, that Black people here are fighting a losing battle. But that narrative conveniently ignores the organizers, strategists, and community builders who have spent decades shifting political power in this region.

People like Stacey Abrams, Nsé Ufot, LaTosha Brown, and countless Black women who have been on the ground doing the work—often without the national recognition they deserve (thankfully, this is changing!). These are some of the people who made Georgia a battleground state. Who flipped elections. Who proved that change here isn’t just possible—it’s happening.

And yet, even with this shift, so much of the conversation around Black liberation still centers on places like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And even when people do talk about the South, they’re looking at Atlanta. But what about Macon? What about Statesboro, Georgia? What about Itta Bena, Mississippi, or Cotton Plant, Arkansas? Power isn’t just being built in major cities. It’s happening in rural communities, in places where Black folks have lived, resisted, and thrived for generations. These are the places people overlook. But I refuse to let them be forgotten.

We are in the midst of a reverse migration—where Black people, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who left during the Great Migration, are coming back to the South. Some are coming home to reclaim land. Some are coming because of affordability. Some are coming for community. But what many don’t realize is that they are walking into a political, cultural, and economic fight that’s been happening long before they got here.

The Radical Southern Belle exists to bridge that gap.

This platform is about more than storytelling. It’s about power-building. It’s about making sure that Black people—whether they’ve been here for generations or are just coming home—understand what’s at stake, who has been fighting for them, and what it looks like to reclaim ownership of our futures.

Why I Knew It Would Work
I knew The Radical Southern Belle would be successful because it was solving a real problem. So many Black Southerners are doing incredible work but don’t see themselves reflected in the broader conversations about movement-building. Meanwhile, advocacy spaces struggle to connect authentically with Black Southern communities because they don’t understand the cultural nuances that shape how we engage with justice.

This platform was my way of bridging that gap. It’s where I could blend storytelling, history, advocacy, and community building in a way that felt both deeply personal and widely impactful.

What Excited Me Most
What excites me most about The Radical Southern Belle is that it’s not just a brand—it’s a movement. It’s a space where we can reclaim our narratives, celebrate our traditions, and imagine new possibilities for liberation that are rooted in our own experiences. Whether I’m writing about Black cooperative economics, the role of Black women in resistance movements, or the importance of honoring our elders’ wisdom, every piece of content is designed to connect, educate, and empower.
And the best part? People have begun resonating with it.

The Radical Southern Belle has opened doors for me to engage in conversations I never expected—to build community with others who have been craving this kind of space.

At its core, The Radical Southern Belle is about legacy—honoring where we come from while building something new. And that’s why I knew it would work. Because when you create something that speaks to people’s souls, they will always show up for it.

Kratina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

About Me & The Radical Southern Belle
I’m Kratina Baker—an advocate, strategist, and storyteller deeply committed to Black Southern liberation, economic empowerment, and cultural preservation. My journey into this work is both deeply personal and shaped by my professional experiences in policy, community organizing, and movement-building.
Growing up in rural Arkansas, I was raised by a family of activists who taught me that liberation is more than just political change—it’s about culture, history, and community resilience. My grandparents believed that Black communities couldn’t just fight for the right to vote; we also had to fight for economic independence, access to education, and control over our own narratives. That lesson stayed with me throughout my career, and eventually, it led me to create The Radical Southern Belle.

How I Got Into This Work
I spent years working in national social justice organizations, focusing on criminal justice reform, reproductive justice, and racial equity. While that work was impactful, I noticed something missing: Black Southern voices were often erased or undervalued in mainstream liberation movements.
The South has always been the birthplace of Black resistance, from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, yet many national organizations struggle to authentically engage with Black Southern communities. I realized that I could bridge that gap by creating a platform where Southern Black culture, history, and activism could be centered and celebrated.
That’s how The Radical Southern Belle was born.

What I Do & The Problems I Solve
The Radical Southern Belle is a media, storytelling, and consulting platform dedicated to:

Amplifying Black Southern culture and activism through blogging, podcasting, and digital storytelling
Providing education and training on issues like racial wealth gaps, cooperative economics, and movement-building
Helping organizations and leaders develop authentic engagement strategies that center Black Southern communities

At its core, my work helps people and organizations:
Understand Black Southern history and its impact on modern justice movements
Build narratives that reflect the lived experiences of Black communities
Engage in liberation work that’s rooted in cultural traditions and sustainability

I also offer consulting services for organizations that want to do this work thoughtfully and effectively—whether it’s through narrative strategy, membership engagement, or cultural competency training.

What Sets Me Apart
Most platforms focus on policy. I focus on cultural shifts, ownership, and sustainability.

Liberation isn’t just about fighting oppression—it’s about having the power to define our own futures.

The Radical Southern Belle is about amplifying Southern Black culture, history, and activism.
Some of the ways we do this is by providing training on economic empowerment, Black cooperative economics, and movement-building and helping organizations engage with Southern Black communities authentically.
And beyond that, I’m in the early stages of launching a Black women’s community group in Atlanta. We’re still in the process of naming it, but it’s already gaining momentum. Because at the end of the day, The Radical Southern Belle is not just about telling stories—it’s about creating spaces where Southern Black folks can thrive.

What I’m Most Proud Of
I’m most proud of the fact that The Radical Southern Belle has created a space for Black Southerners to feel seen, valued, and heard. Every time someone tells me that my work has helped them understand their history better, feel empowered in their activism, or connect with their community in a new way—that’s the real success.

What I Want People to Know About My Work
If there’s one thing I want people to know, it’s that liberation is personal, collective, and cultural. Whether I’m writing, speaking, or consulting, my goal is to help Black communities build power in a way that honors our past, strengthens our present, and transforms our future.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The Lesson: Rest is Not a Reward—It’s a Strategy.

For most of my career, I believed that my worth was tied to how much I could produce. That working long hours, saying yes to everything, and pushing myself past exhaustion was just part of the work.

That belief wasn’t just about ambition—it was about survival. Black women, especially in movement spaces, have been conditioned to believe that we must earn our rest. That exhaustion is a sign of dedication. That our labor is more valuable than our leadership.

But the truth is, that mindset isn’t just harmful—it’s unsustainable.

The breaking point for me came when I realized that no amount of overworking would make people value me if they were committed to overlooking my contributions. That’s when I had to unlearn the idea that I had to constantly prove my worth through sacrifice.

Now, I see rest differently. Rest is not just resistance—it’s strategy. You cannot build a movement, a business, or a legacy if you are too exhausted to dream.

And it’s not just about individuals. The lack of sustainability in movement spaces has been a structural failure. Too many Black women—especially in progressive spaces—have been expected to carry the work on our backs without any real investment in our well-being, our growth, or our long-term leadership.

That’s why sustainability and reflective leadership are core to my work now. Because I don’t just want us to survive—I want us to thrive.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Two books that completely transformed how I engage with movement work and leadership are Dr. Shawn A. Ginwright’s The Four Pivots and Tricia Hersey’s Rest Is Resistance.

These books didn’t just change how I work—they changed how I move.

Ginwright’s The Four Pivots forced me to confront the quiet harm happening inside movement spaces.

In this work, we often talk about fighting injustice, but we don’t talk about the harm we inflict on each other—especially when leadership is driven by unhealed trauma, ego, and unchecked power.

If we’re being honest, progressive spaces are not exempt from the very harm we fight against. How many of us have worked under leaders who never processed their own wounds, and in turn, created toxic, unsustainable environments? How many of us have seen brilliant Black women pushed out of organizations because they refused to shrink themselves?

We can’t hold governments accountable while ignoring the failures happening inside our own movements.

That realization completely changed how I approach movement-building. Instead of just reacting to problems, I started asking:

What are we building toward—not just fighting against?
How do we create systems that sustain our people instead of grinding them down?
How do we ensure that our movements are led with integrity, not trauma responses?
This is why The Radical Southern Belle exists—not just to tell stories, but to create a new way of doing this work.

And when it comes to sustainability, Tricia Hersey’s Rest Is Resistance reinforced what I had already come to understand:

Rest is not weakness.
Rest is not something you earn.
Rest is what allows us to dream, to create, to sustain movements for the long haul.
These books confirmed what I already knew deep down: we cannot afford to recreate the same cycles of harm. We have to build something better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theradicalsouthernbelle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theradicalsouthernbelle/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kratinabaker/

Image Credits

Photographer: Eric Croas