Maintaining Unapologetic Commitments to Racial Justice and Black Joy When Saying (and Being) Black is No Longer Popular

• In Event: From Memory to Movement: SECRET Work to Advance Science Literacy

Abstract

In 2020, the world and a significant majority of its social institutions declared that “Black Lives Matter” and began making commitments to investing in reparations, racial justice, racial equity, and anti-racism for Black people. By 2022, a good percentage of these institutions had dedicated resources to advancing this work. However, by 2024, many of these institutions began to shift their commitments away from a Black specificity, and in 2025, they were preemptively reversed.
Using the C-D-R Framework to structure the presentation, I will discuss strategies for maintaining an unapologetic commitment to advancing racial justice and promoting Black joy within and through STEM education research as we analyze and learn from historical and contemporary movements for racial progress in the U.S.

Author

• Terrell R Morton, University of Illinois at Chicago