Doing it Scared: How Jessa Williams Found Healing in the Waves

August 21, 2025 485 87 5

It all started with a walk on the beach.

During the pandemic, when everyone was rediscovering the outdoors, Jessa Williams noticed a line of small children carrying surfboards into the ocean. Their tiny bodies against the endless blue mystified her. A transplant from Cleveland, OH, still adjusting to LA’s coastal rhythms, she couldn’t shake the image. “The kids [in LA] have this lifestyle growing up where they are introduced to the water at a very young age. And so that sparked the idea in me that I want my son to have that opportunity too.” She signed her son up for surf lessons, and he loved it so much that he begged her to join.

At first, she resisted. “I had zero intentions of learning to surf. My son bullied me into it,” she laughed. When she finally tried, the former gymnast assumed her balance and athleticism would make it easy. Instead, the ocean humbled her. “It was the hardest sport I’ve ever tried,” she said, admitting that the challenge tapped into her competitive spirit.

A Black woman on a surfboard with antoher black woman pushing the board behind her.

Photo by Sabrina Claros.

But soon after Jessa started surfing solo, reality hit hard. One man in the lineup hurled racial and sexist slurs at her while she was out there alone — no phone, no camera, just her board. “He would never have said that to me in the parking lot,” she said. “But in the water, where I was still learning and vulnerable, he thought he could get away with it.” The moment lit a fire. If the ocean was going to be her place of joy, she knew she needed her people there with her.

So, she posted an invitation for women of color to join her. More than a hundred showed up throughout the first surf day. In June of 2021, INTRSXTN was born — a collective built specifically for women of color to learn, connect, and find power in the water. What started as pop-up surf days grew into structured lessons, retreats in Mexico, and The Line Up, a membership-based surf and social club.

For most of its members, surfing isn’t just a sport; it’s empowerment. Many arrive with fear of the ocean, shaped by history and discrimination that kept Black people from swimming in pools and beaches. Overcoming that fear is a reclamation. As Jessa explained, the water demands presence, silences the noise, and teaches women to show up differently in life. The effect penetrates every aspect of their being.

A large group of women posing for a photo on the beach with their brightly colored surfboards popping up in the background.

Photo by Nicole Alvarenga.

That same ethos fueled her first film, Moving Mountains, which follows her partner Tre’lan Michael’s healing journey as a Black big-wave surfer. The short won Athlete’s Choice at the UNINTERRUPTED x Tribeca Festival, where it was handpicked by LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, and Joel Embiid. For Jessa, a Cleveland native, the recognition from LeBron carried extra weight. “It was a very full circle moment for me. To have my first film recognized by like these G.O.A.T.s in their sports, all three of those athletes.”

Now, scaling INTRSXTN Surf to new cities is next on Jessa’s to-do list. Expanding also to retreats and continuing to create space where women of color can take up space in the ocean and beyond. She understands that it’s not about the board or the waves. “Surfing is just the vehicle,” she said, “It’s really about empowerment.”

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