Critical Race Love Letters to Black Women Higher Educational Leaders: “When the Rainbow is Enuf”

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 10:50 am
  In Roundtable Session: And We'll Rise Up! Critical Perspectives on Advancing Leadership and Research in K–12 Settings (Table 40)

Abstract

Black women live under the constant assault of anti-Black racism (Dumas & ross, 2016; Gordon, 1995) and racialized gendered illiteracy (Merriweather, 2020) and feel the weight of misogynoir. This proposed session highlights the experience of leading in place while Black and woman. Using Critical Race Love letters written to their past and/or future self, we unpack, among other things, how White supremacy and anti-Black racism pervade sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2018) and ability to be recognized as leaders. Educational leadership space and place are theorized and reimagined as being culturally liberative (Merriweather et al., 2022) through a critically reflexive understanding of social, emotional, and historical framing of experience that transverses time, geography, and Black bodies.

Authors

• Lisa R. Merriweather, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Edith N. Gnanadass, University of Memphis

• Cathy Howell, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Karen D. Ingram, University of North Carolina - Charlotte