Hope and Despair: Southern Black Women Educators Across Pre- and Post-Civil Rights Cohorts Theorize about Their Activism

I’m Every Woman: Advancing the Intersectional Leadership of Black Women School Leaders as Anti-Racist Praxis

“…Research illuminates the experiences of Black women educational leaders grounded in sexism, historically and present day (Alston, 2005; Brown, 2014). Those identifying as women have historically experienced violence at worst, and disparate opportunities at best, in the school context (Loder-Jackson, 2012). Not unlike anti-racism, intersectional leaders must disrupt cultural and structural practices that marginalize women.…”

“…BFT is grounded in Black women’s experiences, many of which are tethered to their spirituality and activism. Rooted in activism characterized by Black women educator-activists (Loder, 2005; Loder-Jackson, 2012; Loder-Jackson et al, 2016), BFT acknowledges Black women’s activism is characterized by both a struggle for group survival—Black women’s efforts to challenge oppression; and a struggle for institutional transformation—Black women’s large scale efforts to unite with communities and institutions to engage in systemic change.…”

Pushed to Teach: Pedagogies and Policies for a Black Women Educator Pipeline

“…Henry (1992) found in her study of Black women teachers that they were committed to racial uplift, carved a familial ethos in the classroom that affirms students’ affective domains by acting as othermothers, and still emphasized the importance of social and personal responsibility. Similarly, Loder-Jackson (2012) described post-Brown Black women educators viewing themselves as intergenerational builders carrying out the mission of the Civil Rights Movement and teaching the history of the struggle to young generations. Given the concerning pushout trends taking place among Black girls in K-12, their constructions of physical space, the social words, and practice of racial uplift via othermothering offers an important counternarrative of what can be possible for Black girls in school.…”

Social Justice and Teacher Professionalism in the United States in Historical Perspective: Fractured Consensus

“…As a new generation of students made their way into formerly Whitedominated schools, many of which were integrated in name only, the teachers of color they once looked to were largely absent. In addition to the loss of nurturing school-based adults who were culturally familiar, who demanded academic excellence, and who taught with an explicit social uplift mission (e.g., Gist, 2017;Loder-Jackson, 2012;Morris, 2004), students of color [and White students, too] lost access to the intellectual and pedagogical talents of an entire cohort of Black (especially) teachers, many of whom had formal credentials to teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels, but had been forced by segregation to teach in K-12 settings (e.g., Frederick & View, 2009). Beyond backdrop, history is relevant to the present and future (Horsford & D'Amico, 2015), and this chapter closes with a discussion of teacher professional development for social justice.…”