Against Forgetting: Georgia Jeanes Teachers and Educational Liberation in the Red Clay South

• In Event: Reimagining Rural Justice: Critical, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives on Education and Belonging

Abstract

This historical analysis excavates the revolutionary contributions of African American women Jeanes teachers in rural Georgia, whose educational practices nurtured community infrastructure and resistance to Jim Crow oppression (Anderson, 1988; Fairclough, 2007). Drawing on fragmented archives and oral histories, and employing Black feminist historiography (Collins, 2000), this study challenges urban-centric narratives in African American educational historiography by centering rural Southern educators (Walker, 1996). Findings show that Georgia Jeanes teachers' grassroots organizing prefigured modern community-based education movements (Warren et al., 2009). This work responds to calls to "unforget histories" by interrogating how cosmopolitan standards have erased rural Black women’s contributions (Tillman, 2002), offering transformative frameworks for educational equity across time.

Author

• Brittney Kilgore, University of Georgia