If Black Women Were Free: The Politics and Pedagogy of Black Power from the U.S. to the U.K.

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium examines how Black Power’s role in grassroots organizing for education and beyond spurred international movements, which ultimately established institutions and para-educational sites that enhanced students’ sociopolitical consciousness, critical academic engagement, and cultural responsiveness.
Three speakers will explore the work of Black women organizers in the U.S. Two other speakers will trace these works in the UK. and another speaker will explore how political Blackness extended the scope of Black Power to include a more capacious liberatory vision, which included South Asian solidarities. Using oral history interviews and archival sources from both the U.S. and the U.K. the speakers take up a Black feminist examination of cross-Atlantic Black Power education.

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Robert P. Robinson, CUNY - John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Papers

• “You Gotta Keep On, Keeping On”: Harlem’s Fight for Black Minds - Terri N. Watson, City College of New York - CUNY

• Toni Cade Bambara: Tools of Resistance from an Activist-Pedagogue - Makeba Lavan, Grinnell College

• Black Feminist Praxis and Pedagogy Under Fire - Lucien Baskin, Graduate Center - CUNY

• We Anchor Ourselves in History’: Counter-Schooling, Resistance, and Revolt in the Metropole - Shreya Sunderram, Graduate Center - CUNY

• From ‘Black Power’ to ‘Diversity & Inclusion’: British supplementary education and myths of meritocracy in London 1980-90 - Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Central Saint Martins

Session Organizer

• Robert P. Robinson, CUNY - John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Discussant

• Maithreyi Rajeshkumar, The Graduate Center, CUNY