Black Lives Matter and the Making of Black Educational Spaces

Abstract

There is currently a dearth of research on the creation and the implications of Black educational space, even with the increased awareness raised by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to the individual and structural antiblackness inherent in the United States. This essay aims to share the BLM history that helped to motivate and inform two Black college educators’ construction of Black educational space. The analysis reveals that a pro-Black political imagination is required to authentically and meaningfully engage in centering, supporting, and honoring Black people in classroom spaces and beyond. The article shares reflections from the two educators’ about their experiences of constructing Black educational spaces. In doing so, this work attempts to motivate concrete pro-Black action by disrupting standardized academic practices in making commitments to ourselves, our students, and our communities. This work is significant insofar as it contributes to international debates about the purposes of education, and it reimagines how pedagogy can be operationalized to transform classrooms in global educational contexts into sites for Black Healing.