Black Pedagogical Activism as Creative Praxis: Learning from the Jeanes Teachers to Imagine Educational Futures

• In Event: Stepping into the (Cess)Pool While the Water Is Stirring: Deconstructing/Reconstructing Black Pedagogical Activism Narratives

Abstract

This paper examines Black pedagogical activism as a creative praxis, focusing on the historic example of the Jeanes teachers—African American women educational leaders who organized across the Jim Crow South. The study pursues two key objectives: (1) to investigate how the pedagogical activism of Jeanes teachers embodied creativity and strategy, and (2) to explore how their practices can inform future-oriented approaches to teaching and teacher education today.

Theoretical Framework/Method

Anchored in African womanist thought (Dillard, Abdur-Rashid, Tyson, 2000; King, 2019) and Black creative praxis, this work treats Black women's educational labor as both intellectual and artistic. It views the Jeanes teachers not only as educators, but also as architects of liberated educational futures amid oppressive structures. The paper draws on archival research and critical poetic analysis (Cutts, 2020; Author, 2019) of oral histories and Jeanes Teachers' written biographies.

Through close analysis of these data, the study identifies forms of pedagogical activism—such as community-centered leadership, subversive organizing, and adaptive curricular practices—that characterized the Jeanes teachers’ work. The findings reveal a distinctive, strategic pedagogical imagination that was both deeply responsive to local Black communities and radically future-facing.

Scholarly Significance

This work contributes to contemporary educational theory by framing Black pedagogical activism and creativity as a generative model for educational futures. In doing so, it asserts the scholarly significance of historical Black women educators’ intellectual contributions and argues for the integration of their strategies into today’s teacher education and policy discourses.

Author

• Camea Davis, Research Partnership for Professional Learning