Sankofa: The Reclamation and Reconstruction of Black Memory Work Methods for Black Teachers in the South

• In Event: Culture Wars in the Black Educational Landscape: An Exploration of Afrofuturism and Freedom Dreaming through a Social Justice Lens

Abstract

Olivia McNeill’s research commitments are an expression of Sankofa, the Afro-indigenous philosophy that reminds us that reaching back to the past can provide knowledge and wisdom in the present and for the future. Drawing upon Black Memory Work methodologies (i.e. oral histories and critical archival studies), her work is in partnership with Black elder teachers from the US South, whose lives and wisdom offer us tools to understand how contemporary Black teachers might navigate this current iteration of Black dispossession in education. With this work, she foremost seeks to honor the lives and legacies of Black educators, especially southern Black women teachers, and the life-affirming community activism that they embodied in and outside of their classrooms. In addition to documenting and preserving Black educational lives, McNeill’s work seeks to reclaim and reconstruct our shared histories, teaching/learning practices, ways of knowing/being, and our identities as Black teachers and learners.

Author

• Olivia McNeill, University of Massachusetts Amherst