August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle and 20th Century Black Home Education

• In Event: Innovations in Black Education and Cultural Expression

Abstract

The COVID-19 school shut-downs brought homeschooling to the forefront of American society. Even after schools began to reopen, Black families continued to home educate their children at higher rates than other surveyed groups. Although home education has been a fixture in the Black community since the enslavement period, homeschool scholars have claimed that only a few “isolated black families kept their children out of public schools and taught them at home” during the 20th century. Black folks had their own ideas of education which included home education in spaces that bell hooks framed as “homeplace.” This paper argues that ideas of Black home education manifested throughout the 20th century in ways uniquely different from traditionally accepted ways and that August Wilson’s portrayal of Aunt Ester and her home located at 1839 Wylie Avenue serve as an example of the educational concept. Literary scholars such as Trudier Harris and Valery Sweeny Prince have already used African American fictional literature to argue that black experiences of “home” in the 20th century US context were very different from white traditional conceptions. Urban historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor argued in her book Race for Profit, that while white homes were viewed as an asset, “Black living spaces—whether nonnormative family structures or poverty or dilapidated living structures—cast Black dwellings as incapable of achieving the status of home.” Black home education has been understudied because “Black homes” cannot exist in the traditional sense and Black education outside of schooling is illegible to the academy. However, using new perspectives for historical research in Black education can illuminate Black educational ideas from the past that impact future scholarly inquiries and alternatives for the education of Black children.

Author

• Stacey L. Akines, Carnegie Mellon University