Centering Blackness in Education

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Black millennials are responding to the “crucial role of education in the history of African Americans” by centering Blackness within digital communities to control their own historical narratives and fight institutional practices of anti-Blackness. In response to Black Lives Matter and its traumatic reality of violent marginalization, many are searching for spaces to educate their communities. By creating digital communities, they can address contemporary issues affecting their lives such as social and political disenfranchisement. As Dr. Woodson once said, “if you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race.” While Woodson wanted to move away from race, many African Americans are intentionally validating their racialized lived experiences to seek social and political equality.

This research examines possible correlations between the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of Black digital community conversations that embed uplift by countering educational and ultimately financial and political systemic marginalization. Sections of focus will include how social media is: helping to DE- totalize Stereotypical images in Popular Culture, covering the School to Prison Pipeline, and Black entrepreneurship.

Applying a contextual sociological analysis of these sections will provide an exploration of contemporary educational efforts that offer critical debate on the ways in which ideas of collective activism are being transmitted. The aim of this research is to showcase educational communities that are engaging in digital collective activism by centering Blackness to resist institutional practices of educational and economic stratification.

Sub Unit

• 102nd Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Chair

• Moses Massenburg, Michigan State University

Individual Presentations

• Centering Blackness in Education - Kendra Jackson, CSUS; Sabrina Harrell, CSUS; Valerie William, CSUS; Andrea Moore, California State University, Sacramento

• Centering Blackness in Education - Ricky Green, CSUS

Commentator

• ASALH Audience, .