Emphatically Our Battle: A Content Analysis of the New York City African Free School Curriculum, 1789–1840 (Poster 44)

• In Event: AERA Virtual Poster Session 8
  In Poster Session: Biographical and Documentary Research SIG Poster Presentations

Abstract

Scholarship on the role of slavery, emancipation, and racial discrimination in the post-Revolutionary and antebellum periods in the north has grown over the years. However, few studies exist that specifically examine the curriculum of free schools in northern cities, and how the Black community’s involvement in these school impacted the curriculum that was taught to the children of former enslaved people. Therefore, we examined the documents of prominent founders, administrators, faculty, and alumni of The African Free School of New York in order to ascertain whether these materials showed evidence of emancipatory curriculum for the children of freedmen that was, and can still be used, as pedagogical tools to challenge racial discrimination and promote equity in the 21st century.

Authors

• Katherine Perrotta, Mercer University

• Tiffany Rainey, DeKalb County School System