To the Left: The Makings of a Black Radical Pedagogy

• In Event: Ancestral Futures: Sankofa, Afrofuturism, and Black Educational Imagination

Abstract

As many systems of injustice have evolved stemming from colonialism, education has been both a site of colonial control and Black resistance. Education (loosely, not solely confined to government funding institutions) has been political and Black communities have utilized it to control their own livelihoods. With the range of sociopolitical ideologies that exist within Black education, our current moment calls for a return to one on the far left. This project explores five Black Radical educators and their usage of pedagogy for social movement building in the 20th century. By studying Ericka Huggins, Walter Rodney, Ella Baker, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius Nyerere, we are able to see the anti colonial and imperial pedagogies that are required for Black liberation.

Author

• Noah Nelson, Johns Hopkins University