By Kimberly Wilson ·Updated May 4, 2026 < /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… There are conferences, and then there are rooms that change you. ExcelerateHER is the latter.
Now in its fourth year, the annual leadership summit founded by Kim Blackwell, CEO of marketing and brand strategy firm PMM Agency and ESSENCE 2024 Power 40 honoree, gathered Black women executives, policy makers, and culture shapers at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne last week for four days where every session seemed to pull something out of the people in the room. Past editions have drawn names like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Tyler Perry, Marsai Martin, and Uncle Nearest Founder and CEO Fawn Weaver.
This year was no different, of course. We were poured into by speakers such as VP Kamala Harris, Cookie Johnson, and a roster of leaders who came ready to give. And then there was the panel on love and leadership featuring Maryland Governor Wes Moore and First Lady Dawn Moore, who sat down and showed us they’re not just Maryland’s first family, but America’s. And if the panel taught us anything, it’s that behind every great leader is an equally great partner. Dawn Moore’s story starts long before she ever became First Lady.
She came to public life on purpose, raised in a family where civic engagement was woven into everyday life. “I came from a family of civil service,” she told us. “My mother was a teacher. My father was operating engineer. We were a union family.” From there, she went to the University of Maryland, built a career at senior levels of government, and was driven, as she put it, by a love for people and community.
What she didn’t plan for was falling in love with someone who would one day become the only sitting Black governor in the United States.
Their story sounds like something God had already written before either of them knew the other existed, which is actually how Dawn tells it. A mutual connection made the introduction, the first call was awkward, and coffee followed. The rest, as they say, is history. Reflecting on those early days, Wes was specific about what drew him in. “She’s brilliant,” he said. “I love how she thought. I love how she dreamed. I love how she had such a focus on family and legacy.”
He was also refreshingly unbothered by her success and visibility, and grounded enough to say so out loud. “I never felt the type of way about watching Black women leave because that’s all I know,” he said. He was raised by women who led, and that upbringing clearly settled into something he carries into his marriage without having to think much about it. Dawn has been open about the fact that when Wes first said he wanted to run for governor, she approached it the way most people around him did, with real scrutiny. “When Wes decided he wanted to run, I kicked the tires like everybody else did, because it was going to impact our family,” she said. She signed on anyway, and then got to work figuring out what her role needed to look like.
She talked about what it means to keep their home a sanctuary, especially during the harder stretches of public life. When her husband was navigating a devastating crisis during his governorship, she made a conscious decision about what her role needed to look like. “I had to be the person that he needed as a wife, as a mother, so he could be at peace in his sanctuary in his home,” she said.
Wes, for his part, didn’t need many words to answer the question of how he protects her. “Her peace is life,” he said.
What keeps coming through in the way they both talk about their marriage is how much deliberate thought goes into the everyday work of it. Dawn has spent years learning how to communicate in a way that her husband can actually hear. “I will write him a letter,” she said, “because I can be emotional in my writing, but not emotional in my voice, and not emotional in my face, and not emotional in my hands. And so that allows me to put everything on paper, on a text.” She also said that through the years, her husband “has never been afraid to say I’m sorry,” which she offered not as a small grace but as the kind of quality that compounds over time in a marriage in ways people don’t always appreciate until they’re deep into a life together.
Later in the session, the conversation moved toward the current political climate. Dawn turned to us, a room full of executive Black women who know firsthand what it costs to make the wrong bet on the wrong person, and spoke directly to every single one of us. “Do not select people who do not love you,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if you elected leaders. It doesn’t matter if it’s your partner. If they do not love you, do not select them.”
The post “Do Not Select People Who Do Not Love You”: Gov. Wes Moore And First Lady Dawn Moore On Love, Leadership, And Why Who You Choose Matters appeared first on Essence.