A Black Marxist Historical Framework to Uncover the History of Black Spiritual Activism in Education

• In Event: Accounting for the Black Radical Tradition in the Heart of Black Pedagogy

Abstract

The history of Black resistance, protest, organizing, and revolt against white opposition and domination during the formation of formalized schooling in America is extensive. Anderson contends that universal education became a reality in Black society because freedpeople were “a responsible and politically self-conscious social class” (Anderson, 1989, p. 15). Historians offer multiple accounts of Black resistance efforts that are significantly responsible for the schooling of Black American children and families, and these efforts were strategic political actions. More specifically, public education in the South owes an outstanding debt to Black resistance and revolt. In response to the development of a Black literate working class, poor whites were more motivated to establish public education systems in the South like that of the North (Williams, 2005; Anderson, 1989; Moss, 2009). During the nineteenth century, churches were essential to Black schooling efforts both in the South and the North.


Yet, Black churches have not received enough scholarly research and attention in the field of education history. Black church congregants and leaders understood that the pursuit of education by African Americans, both enslaved and freed, was also a political endeavor linked to attaining American citizenship. An honorable mention in historical studies of the nineteenth century in education, Black churches engaged in the fight for racial justice in education and provided spaces for students to learn, teaching staff, financial support, and more to ensure Black students and families could learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. To address this gap in research, I offer the possibilities a Black Marxist historical framework would provide if engaged when exploring the intricate connection between Black churches and educational organizing, policy, and theory.


A theoretical approach under the umbrella of political economy, Black Marxism allows for a richer exploration of the ideological sources that deeply reside in the educational revolts of the antebellum period. In this paper, I will provide an overview of how scholars have researched the history of Black schooling in America, how they discuss the participation of Black churches in educational activism, and detail what a Black Marxist historical framework, framed by womanist theory, can offer to the study of education history. Black Marxism provides a historical method of “re-membering” the genealogy and epistemology of resistance and revolution, by which I will design and conceptualize my study. The goal of this work is to explore the spiritual, historical consciousness of the Black church’s revolt and resistance to the White Christian hegemonic formation of common schools (Quan, 2005). A historical study as this one requires one to resist hegemonic methods of academic study as one that is neutral or distant. Instead, the goal of this work is to make this a spiritual project. By that, I mean to deeply understand the theological and ideological consciousness that informed Black radical resistance from Black churches requires the researcher to understand the self as a spiritual being. In doing so, I hope to uncover the beauty and complexity of Black spiritual activism at the heart of educational organizing.

Author

• Ashley Lipscomb, Rutgers University