Cub Growls: A Black Educational History Through the Eyes of Oakland Community School Students

• In Event: 28.033 - Black Power, Black Schools, and Radical Multicultural Reform

Abstract

Black Power studies has increased investigations into Afrocentric pedagogy and Black politically-engaged education after World War II. One school within this area is the Oakland Community School: the Black Panther Party’s full-time day school, which had its roots in 1970 and operated until 1982. While multiple works detail the pedagogical contours of the school and its community engagement, few elicit the voices of former students. This work frontloads such voices in conjunction with traditional archives and digital archival material as a means of contextualizing the OCS within the Bay Area education of the period, the lengthier arc of Black American Education, and the potential for contemporary education.

Author

• Robert P. Robinson, The Graduate Center, CUNY