The Heart of the City: Black Teachers as Othermothers in Atlanta's Gentrifying Schools

• In Event: “Slum Life Is Squalid”: Challenging Urban Renewal Through Critical Race Place-Based Research in Historic Schools/Communities

Abstract

Black teachers have long been contested in urban schools through conspicuous policies and practices and oftentimes stealth. The Atlanta Cheating Scandal further scandalized Black teachers, Black communities, and urban education (Robinson & Simonton, 2019). The dominant narrative proffered by the Atlanta Cheating Scandal was one in which Black families do not value education, and Black teachers do not “take responsibility” for their supposed salacious actions. However, Black Atlantans knew that the scandal was a manufactured and intentional approach by a corporate political regime determined to profit on the backs of Black people, neighborhoods, and schools. Who, then, are the people holding our schools, students, and communities together in times of rampant displacement, dispossession, and disposability?

Through a critical race-spatial analysis (Morrison, Annamma, & Jackson, 2017) and counter-storytelling (Matsuda, 1995), this paper reminds readers that Black teachers are the heart of the city and their knowledge, skills, attitudes, beliefs, mindsets, worldviews, consciousness, dispositions, or “souls” (Presenter, 2021) are the defining features of what it means to be an “other mother” (Foster, 1993, Dixson, 2003) in a gentrifying school landscape. More specifically, this paper is grounded in a DuBoisian approach (1899/1996, 1935), offering both a critical race-spatial analysis and a cultural understanding of the souls of other mothers in a gentrifying city. On the one hand, this paper offers a comprehensive examination of race, place, and power, providing the reader with a deeper understanding of the sociological context of Black schools. On the other, it offers a cultural characterization of Black teachers as a group with a shared ethos and commitment to human freedom and advancement. To that end, Black teachers chart the ways in which gentrification has catalyzed collective action for, by, and with Black students and communities.

The author shares the multiple ways in which “other motherhood” exists in gentrifying Atlanta schools, including a connected, reciprocal, and shared web of safety, security, and consistently high expectations in challenging dominant norms projected onto Black communities. This paper stands in stark contrast to the deficit, anti-Black, market-based school choice narratives rampant throughout education policy and urban planning circles. Additionally, this paper offers a community-centered, real-world, place-based view of the quotidian lives of Black teachers in urban Atlanta who are both/and in the lives of Black children, families, and communities (Presenter, 2024). That is, Black teachers are both protectors of and penalized alongside the communities they serve. In sum, this paper holistically weaves the historical, economic, political, and social context of race and place and reveals transformation through the power of collective care in the face of gentrifying forces.

Author

• Thais Council, Temple University