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Still Separate: Black Lives Matter and the Enduring Legacy of School Segregation in Rural Georgia

Sat, April 23, 11:30am to 1:00pm PDT (11:30am to 1:00pm PDT), Manchester Grand Hyatt, Floor: 2nd Level, Seaport Tower, Seaport Ballroom G

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to critically probe how the clash of BLM and white-nationalist hate groups complicates the reality of segregation, education, and social change in a rural community in central Georgia. Theories from critical race studies ground the work and I use narratives to frame and examine what school transformation can look like for Black people living in rural communities. The presentation is drawn from a critical ethnography that I pursued with members of my own Black rural community. The study utilized census data, school district achievement data, and informal conversations and interviews. The findings from this research suggest that some African Americans in this rural community are beginning to embrace forms of segregation as a reparative compromise to dealing with racism in their community. This work contributes to the literature on race and education in rural schooling and community and seeks to provide a grammar for discussing reparative benefits of imagining what school transformation can look like in the midst of a legacy of school segregation.

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