Remembering the Fourth Demand: June Jordan’s Legacy of Black Language/ Black Feminist Teaching

• In Event: Black Feminist Literary Scholarship in Praxis

Abstract

Inspired by June Jordan’s canonical essays, I examine key moments in June Jordan’s writings as critical points of entry for race-radical Black feminisms in college writing classrooms, language pedagogy, and anti-racist education (Jordan 2002, 1981). I look closely at her early writings about teaching that are rooted in the specific context of the City University of New York and its mass-scale and radical racial restructuring of higher education (Gumbs, 2014; Rogers, 2012). I reclaim a critical history for higher education where June Jordan compels an alternative vocabulary and theoretical framework for social change in educational institutions.

Presenter

• Carmen Kynard, John Jay College