Presentations 1 and 2

• In Event: Re-remembering the Past and Envisioning the Future to Mobilize the Present: Community Organizers, Activist Scholars, and Funders Connecting Movements for Educational Justice

Abstract

Activist scholar #1 is a professor and leader in promoting abolitionist teaching, working in partnership with educators, families, and communities.
This participant will discuss abolition as care work that is often difficult, complicated, and messy. But what’s often left out are the real tensions—the ugliest parts of the work. The mistrust. The hurt feelings. The way it can all unravel, even within a nonprofit rooted in love and care. Her words will speak to the painful ending of the Abolitionist Teaching Network and the hard lessons she’s carried forward from that experience.

Activist scholar #2 is a professor with a long history of conducting participatory action research with parents, youth and communities in Chicago.
This participant’s comments will speak to the lessons learned in Chicago from independent formations in the 1960's (specifically the Communiversity and the friends of SNCC coalition) that have deeply impacted and shifted the current work of education organizers in Chicago. In revisiting these lessons, important groundwork has been laid for future educational justice work throughout the city, providing lessons for educators and organizers nationally and internationally.

Authors

• Bettina L. Love, Teachers College, Columbia University

• David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago