This article draws from my Charles H. Thompson Lecture on November 4, 2020. I argue that the current educational system does not need to be reformed or reimagined--it needs to be abolished. My presentation was a call to action to utilize the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of abolitionists for educational justice. I conclude with…

Operating within the Black radical tradition, through this kitchen-table talk, we seek to edify and sustain abolitionist ontologies. We begin with poetic and musical offerings that highlight our personal connections to abolition, before exploring the complexities and necessities of relationship building as foundational for this work. We encounter…

Purpose: From the in-group status as a former homeschool parent, the goal is to problematize the entanglement of neoliberalism within self-directed education (SDE) pedagogies. Further and importantly, this study aims to bring attention to and examine the neoliberal resistant practices found in Black homeschooling. Design/methodology/approach: A…

Background: This article considers the speculative and pedagogical character of campus abolitionist organizing. Extending education research into the knowledge (re)producing functions of radical activism, we draw upon the Black Radical Tradition to theorize the intersections of learning and imagination in both activism and education. Method: The…

In June 2020, the world witnessed an upsurge in Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, an African American, by a White American police officer. The international response called for the global community to reassess the value of black lives blighted by racist social systems. The mass sentiment acted as a…

In a world yearning for change, "Roses from Concrete" delivers a blueprint for educational transformation. Through the compelling stories of Black women superintendents and heads of schools, it reveals the power of intersectional leadership to dismantle systemic inequities and inspire a more just and equitable future. This groundbreaking…

The pandemic and uprisings against police terror have heightened the devastation of white supremacy and capitalism. During this time of heightened devastation, revolutionary organizing efforts have amplified. As people are coming together to resist and create alternatives to these murderous systems, the purpose of this project is to strengthen the…

While parent involvement has been shown to have positive academic outcomes for their children, for structural changes to be made, parents have to go from being active to taking on a more activist role, thus "stoking the flame" of the norm. Parent advocacy and empowerment groups play a vital role in the transformation of parent activists,…

Early childhood teacher preparation programs offer a curriculum that centers the White normative perspective (i.e., devoid of diverse perspectives). Because the young children and families that these teachers will work with are representative of the U.S. demographic, it is important that these programs consider alternate ways of preparing their…

In this article, we focus on how anti-Black logics operate within various domains of power in ways that deny Black children, including our own, their right to a just and antiracist education. We begin by describing how socialization contributes to the development and deployment of anti-Black logics by teachers and school leaders. We then discuss…

"The Eyes of Texas," the official song of The University of Texas at Austin (UT), was written during the Jim Crow era, was first performed at a 1903 minstrel show, and was inspired by Robert E. Lee. This legacy and the enduring institutional racism at UT bring into question the purpose and propriety of the song in a post-truth era, where…

Contemporary college student activism has been particularly visible and effective in the past few years at US institutions of higher education and is projected only to grow in future years. Almost all of these protests and demands, while explicitly linked to social and racial justice, are sites of resistance to the neoliberalization of the…

Ghettos are a social evil. They are social atrocities maintained by inexcusable racist laws and practices, structures of class domination, and institutionalized political marginalization. After "Brown v. The Board of Education," educational reformers have increasingly (mis)framed the problem of "ghetto schools" as a failure to…

The authors put forward a theorization of a Black Critical Theory, or what might be called BlackCrit, within, and in response to, Critical Race Theory, and then outline ways that BlackCrit in education helps us to more incisively analyze how the specificity of (anti)blackness matters in explaining how Black bodies become marginalized, disregarded,…

This paper uses Derrick Bell's interest convergence principle, which argues that whites will support racial justice efforts only if they believe they will see gains for themselves, to examine white philanthropic support of Black education in the postbellum South and in current school reforms. Using the concept of "bad" (or compromising)…