Black Women as Instructional Leaders: Linking Contemporary Research, Theory, and Practice to a Liberatory "Herstory"

• In Event: Borderlands: Constructing Educational Possibilities Across P–20 Systems: A Structured Conversation Between Educational Leadership and Teacher Education

Abstract

Black women are inherently valuable to society (Combahee River Collective, 1977). Extant literature extols the narratives of groundbreaking Black women who, despite their “continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation,” (Combahee River Collective, p. 293) propelled society forward. This cadre includes Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to publish a book of poetry; Sojourner Truth, a noted orator and abolitionist; and Harriet Tubman, a solider in the Union Army and the ‘conductor’ of an underground railroad that led scores of enslaved people to freedom. In addition to being skilled authors, orators, and abolitionists, many Black women were radical teachers and learners during the antebellum period (Coppin, 1913; McCluskey, 2014; Watson & McClellan, 2020).

Before the Civil War (1861 – 1865), more than a dozen states enacted anti-literacy laws to ensure Black subjugation. If Black people were caught learning to read or write, they faced severe consequences, which included lashings, mutilation, and even death (Williams, 2005). Black women routinely ignored these sanctions. They knew that literacy was essential to Black liberation and would improve their life chances. Over the last two decades the instructional leadership practices of Black principals, and Black women principals specifically, have become more prominent (Bloom & Erlandson, 2003; Peters, 2012; Tillman, 2004a, b; Wilson, 2016). Notably, many of the current discussions and research on school / instructional leadership are steeped in whiteness and obscures the lived experiences and contributions of Black women to the schoolhouse and to Black student achievement.

Contrary to Hallinger’s (2018) argument that instructional leadership has only an indirect effect on student performance and teacher behavior, research using a Black feminist lens indicates that the instructional leadership practices of Black women school leaders/principals/ instructional leaders can and do have a direct impact on teachers’ motivation, school climate and culture, and student achievement. As Lomotey (2019), Jang and Alexander (2022), Weiner et al. (2022) and others have pointed out, there is a direct link between the how, what, and why of Black women principals’ instructional leadership and the social, emotional, and academic achievement of students, particularly Black students.

Last, as the nation’s racial demographics continues to shift, we cannot afford to only educate some students. This means that new and different epistemologies for knowing, teaching, learning, and leadership for the schoolhouse are vital. Black women are essential to this needed change. We must do and be better and Black women/Black women school leaders can help. We must include Black women in our conversations, classrooms, the schoolhouse, and in college and university leadership preparation programs. This conversation will help to point us in the right direction.

Authors

• Terri N. Watson, City College of New York - CUNY

• Linda C. Tillman, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Anjalé D. Welton, University of Wisconsin - Madison