This book examines the lived experiences and work of African American women educators during the 1880s to the 1960s. Specifically, this text portrays an array of Black educators who used their social location as educators and activists to resist and fight the interlocking structures of power, oppression, and privilege that existed across the various educational institutions in the U.S. during this time. This book seeks to explore these educators' thoughts and teaching practices in an attempt to understand their unique vision of education for Black students and the implications of their work for current educational reform.
Emerging from the darkness of the slave era and Reconstruction, black activist women Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Nannie Helen Burroughs founded schools aimed at liberating African-American youth from disadvantaged futures in the segregated and decidedly unequal South. From the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, these individuals fought discrimination as members of a larger movement of black women who uplifted future generations through a focus on education, social service, and cultural transformation. Born free, but with the shadow of the slave past still implanted in their consciousness, Laney, Bethune, Brown, and Burroughs built off each other’s successes and learned from each other’s struggles as administrators, lecturers, and suffragists. Drawing from the women’s own letters and writings about educational methods and from remembrances of surviving students, Audrey Thomas McCluskey reveals the pivotal significance of this sisterhood’s legacy for later generations and for the institution of education itself.
Winner, 2021 AERA Outstanding Book Award Winner, 2021 AERA Division F New Scholar's Book Award Winner, 2020 Mary Kelley Book Prize, given by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Winner, 2020 Outstanding Book Award, given by the History of Education Society Uncovers the hidden role of girls and women in the desegregation of American education The story of school desegregation in the United States often begins in the mid-twentieth-century South. Drawing on archival sources and genealogical records, Kabria Baumgartner uncovers the story’s origins in the nineteenth-century Northeast and identifies a previously overlooked group of activists: African American girls and women. In their quest for education, African American girls and women faced numerous obstacles—from threats and harassment to violence. For them, education was a daring undertaking that put them in harm’s way. Yet bold and brave young women such as Sarah Harris, Sarah Parker Remond, Rosetta Morrison, Susan Paul, and Sarah Mapps Douglass persisted. In Pursuit of Knowledge argues that African American girls and women strategized, organized, wrote, and protested for equal school rights—not just for themselves, but for all. Their activism gave rise to a new vision of womanhood: the purposeful woman, who was learned, active, resilient, and forward-thinking. Moreover, these young women set in motion equal-school-rights victories at the local and state level, and laid the groundwork for further action to democratize schools in twentieth-century America. In this thought-provoking book, Baumgartner demonstrates that the confluence of race and gender has shaped the long history of school desegregation in the United States right up to the present.
This important, timely, and provocative book explores the recruitment and retention of Black female teachers in the United States. There are over 3 million public school teachers in the US, African American teachers only comprise approximately 8 percent of the workforce. Contributions consider the implicit nuances that these teachers experience.
When Mabokela (education, Michigan State U.) arrived in the US for post-graduate studies, she found that women of African descent labored under disadvantages that reminded her of apartheid in her native South Africa. As part of the struggle to overcome those barriers, she collects the experiences of 15 emerging African-American women scholars in education and related fields. Some look at the history of black women in the academy, while others consider a theoretical framework, coming to terms with conditions, racial identity, and other aspects. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Examines material culture and the act of institution creation, especially through architecture and landscape, to recount a deeper history of the lives of African American women in the post-Civil War South.
An exploration of how engaging identity and cultural heritage can transform teaching and learning for Black women educators in the name of justice and freedom in the classroom In The Spirit of Our Work, Dr. Cynthia Dillard centers the spiritual lives of Black women educators and their students, arguing that spirituality has guided Black people throughout the diaspora. She demonstrates how Black women teachers and teacher educators can heal, resist, and (re)member their identities in ways that are empowering for them and their students. Dillard emphasizes that any discussion of Black teachers’ lives and work cannot be limited to truncated identities as enslaved persons in the Americas. The Spirit of Our Work addresses questions that remain largely invisible in what is known about teaching and teacher education. According to Dillard, this invisibility renders the powerful approaches to Black education that are imbodied and marshaled by Black women teachers unknown and largely unavailable to inform policy, practice, and theory in education. The Spirit of Our Work highlights how the intersectional identities of Black women teachers matter in teaching and learning and how educational settings might more carefully and conscientiously curate structures of support that pay explicit and necessary attention to spirituality as a crucial consideration.
“A searing and emotionally gripping account of a young black girl growing up to become a strong black woman during the most difficult time of racial segregation.”—Professor Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School “Provides important context for an important moment in America’s history.”—Associated Press When fourteen-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine,” as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America. For Carlotta and the eight other children, simply getting through the door of this admired academic institution involved angry mobs, racist elected officials, and intervention by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was forced to send in the 101st Airborne to escort the Nine into the building. But entry was simply the first of many trials. Breaking her silence at last and sharing her story for the first time, Carlotta Walls has written an engrossing memoir that is a testament not only to the power of a single person to make a difference but also to the sacrifices made by families and communities that found themselves a part of history.
For Black women faculty members and student affairs personnel, this book delineates the needed skills and the range of possible pathways for attaining administrative positions in higher education.This book uses a survey that identifies the skills and knowledge that Black women administrators report as most critical at different stages of their careers as a foundation for the personal narratives of individual administrators’ career progressions. The contributors address barriers, strategies, and considerations such as the comparative merits of starting a career at an HBCU or PWI, or at a public or private institution.Their stories shine light on how to develop the most effective leadership style, how to communicate, and the importance of leading with credibility. They dwell on the necessity of listening to one’s inner voice in guiding decisions, of maintaining integrity and having a clear sense of values, and of developing a realistic sense of personal limitations and abilities. They illustrate how to combine institutional and personal priorities with service to the community; share how the authors carved out their distinct and purposeful career paths; and demonstrate the importance of the mentoring they received and provided along the way. A theoretical chapter provides a frame for reflecting on the paths traveled. These accounts and reflections provide enlightenment, inspiration, and nuggets of wisdom for all Black women who want to advance their careers in higher education.
