The Education of a Storyteller: Exploring the Knowledge Production of Stories in Black Girl–Centered Spaces

• In Event: To Romanticize or Not To? Collective Struggles of Marginalized Youth and the Politics of Representation

Abstract

This study investigates the stories of Black girls and the knowledge that is produced through the stories within the context of Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT), a grassroots collective that is organized by Black women who center the experiences and voices of Black girls. More specifically, this study seeks to consider the ways in which the stories told in SOLHOT are informed by Black feminist theory and how this then informs and helps build the relationship between Black girls and Black women. Essentially, I argue that Black girls do not arrive to “new” knowledge as Black women, rather the stories told indicate that Black girlhood informs a Black [feminist] womanhood and that there cannot be a Black [feminist] womanhood without Black girlhood. The knowledge the girls have, particularly about their lived experiences, is present, encouraged, and acknowledged in spaces where Black girls gather such as SOLHOT where the intent is to always center the experiences and voices of Black girls. Lastly, this study is interested in how we can use the knowledge produced through the girls’ stories to then inform what we know about Black girlhood and Black [feminist] womanhood.

Black feminist and womanist theory are central to this project because Black feminist thought “consists of a specialized knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women…Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live it” (Collins, 1993, p. 22). In addition, the work of Toni Cade Bambara, who made use of stories and storytelling to center Black girls, is central to this project. Furthermore, the use of womanism, as defined by Alice Walker, allows for theory to exist in the in-between space of womanhood and girlhood.

This study is ethnographic, specifically participant-observation, which utilizes data collected during SOLHOT’s 2-hour sessions held once a week for six weeks during March-May 2014, March-May 2015, and one full week session that was held November 3-8, 2014. The 2-hour sessions happened after school in two of the local middle schools and one of the local high schools for a total of 34 hours spent in the field.

The preliminary results of this study suggest that when given an environment that encourages girls and supports their lived experiences they feel comfortable to freely express themselves. Furthermore, when Black women organize with Black girls at the center and allow their voices to lead we learn much more about the girls and their relationships to schools and each other, adults, and to racism and sexism. Through the stories told we build community with Black girls and value their knowledge, which helps Black women recognize their experiences are very similar to that of Black girls.

Author

• Porshe Renee Garner, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign