Facing the Rising Sun

Abstract

Over 50 years after the monumental decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many U.S. schools remain separate and unequal. This includes schools in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. The article discusses how in the two centuries of public education in Washington, D.C., Black educators used a variety of subversive tactics to educate their children. This article chronicles critical milestones in educational policy that affected Black educators working in segregated, all-Black schools in Washington, D.C. The authors demonstrate that, in the face of the oppressive sociopolitical conditions and racist policies, Black educators continued to serve in their own interests by fostering liberatory spaces for their children.

Teaching for Social Justice: (Post-) Model Minority Moments

“…Other teachers tailor their teaching to be relevant to students' prior experiences (Brown, 2009;Gomez, Rodriguez, & Agosto, 2008;Wong, 2008). Still other teachers engage in subversive education in order to challenge the notion that students of color are lacking in ability (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2011;Arce, 2004;Farrugio, 2009;Foster, 1997;Frederick & View, 2009). Interestingly, while some scholars posit that students prefer race-matched teaching, which is when a teacher's race matches the student's race (Dickar, 2008;Ochoa, 2007), other studies find that students of color deem teachers of color as culturally suspect (Achinstein & Aguirre, 2008).…”

Material Girls: Consumption and the Making of Middle Class Identity in the Experiences of Black Single Mothers in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area

“…In fact, "as early as 1807, there was evidence that three Black men, recently freed from enslavement, risked their lives to establish the first Black school in DC. George Bell, Moses Liverpool, and Nicholas Franklin, "who knew not a letter of the alphabet" organized this school close to the DC waterfront (Fitzpatrick & Goodwin, 1999) (Frederick and View 2009)". Access to education and the formalization of schools for black communities has had a lasting significance in the District.…”