“God Meant I Should Be Free”: Historical Black Women Teachers and the Theo-Ethical Imperative of Abolition (Poster 6)

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Historically, Black women abolitionist teachers actively participated in the fight to abolish slavery while simultaneously, struggling for educational equity. Espousing a liberatory notion of education, they expanded the roles and responsibilities of a teacher and broadened the aims and scope of the abolitionist movement after the Emancipation Proclamation from eradicating slavery to abolishing all forms of oppression and injustice, inside and outside of schools. More importantly, these Black women abolitionist teachers injected their work with deeper meaning—namely, that freedom and education were not only human and civil rights, but God given rights. Drawing on close analysis of archival documents, this paper reclaims the radical faith of historical Black women teachers that allowed them to move from deeply intimate, inward yearnings of freedom, to outward expressions of radical sociopolitical action. Ultimately, what is revealed is a transcendent, lived theo-ethic of abolition that responded to their existential realities, and informed their notions of education, freedom, and justice, constituting a very particular form of resistance. In conclusion, I suggest that in order to enact radical social transformation within the field of education, and beyond, contemporary teachers must first embody an ethic of abolition. Gratefully, historical Black women abolitionist teachers have provided a prophetic witness on how to do so.

Author

• Amber Neal-Stanley, Purdue University