Until the Revolution: Analyzing the Politics, Pedagogy, and Curriculum of the Oakland Community School

Abstract

In United States conversations about progressive pedagogy and alternative forms of education, the longstanding models that scholars used were predominantly white. African-American historians of education have problematized this narrative. More recently, the interdisciplinary field of Black Power studies has increased investigation into Afrocentric pedagogy and Black politically-engaged education after World War II (Rickford, 2016). While much attention has been paid to the freedom schools, educational sites run by Black revolutionary nationalists have received less attention. One particular site is the Oakland Community School (OCS), the Black Panther Party’s full-time day school. Initially a combined day-care and home school known as the Children’s House in 1970, the school changed to become the Intercommunal Youth Institute in 1971. It then operated as the Oakland Community School from 1974 until 1982, earning acclaim from the California Department of Education and the governor of California (Gore, Theoharis & Woodard, 2009). While multiple historical studies detail the pedagogical contours of the school and its community engagement, very few elicit the voices of former students. This work incorporates such voices, in conjunction with traditional archives and digital archival material, as a means of contextualizing the OCS within the Black Panther Party’s politics of the period and the school’s implications for contemporary education.

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“…This included schools where there was concern about the increased expulsion of Black children, the use of security guards on school grounds, and the lowered expectations for Black children (Abron, 1997; Huggins & LeBlanc-Ernest, 2009). While the initial iteration of OCS, the Intercommunal Youth Institute 2 , mostly enrolled children of Black Panther Party members who feared retaliation from public school educators and families that were “disillusioned by the criminalizing effects of public schools” (Robinson, 2020, p. 186), the eventual evolution to OCS had a waiting list of over 400 students from families across Oakland—which speaks to the demand for culturally responsive schools and school leaders in the Oakland area.…”

“…Black women educational leaders in OCS rejected standardized testing as a means to dictate and narrow curriculum (Huggins & LeBlanc-Ernest, 2009). Instead, they focused on nurturing the curiosity of youth and encouraged children to become critical consumers and creators of knowledge and solutions (Robinson, 2020). School administrators emphasized that students must be taught “how to think” rather than “what to think” (Perlstein, 2002, p. 265).…”

“…Black youth in OCS learned about white supremacy, giving back to their community, and took advanced calculus and algebra courses while their peers in other schools were learning basic addition and subtraction (Huggins & LeBlanc-Ernest, 2009; Robinson, 2020). In history classes, students learned about Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist groups and read books that celebrated Black thought and Black life, including Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide and the Autobiography of Malcolm X (Robinson, 2020). One former student recalled that he later realized college-level students were learning what they were taught in elementary school at OCS (Robinson, 2020).…”

“…In history classes, students learned about Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist groups and read books that celebrated Black thought and Black life, including Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide and the Autobiography of Malcolm X (Robinson, 2020). One former student recalled that he later realized college-level students were learning what they were taught in elementary school at OCS (Robinson, 2020). Black women educational leaders in OCS set an ethos within the school that the minds of young people were to be honored and that it was necessary to ensure their local and global social awareness.…”

“…Such exposure to key historical figures motivated Black children to understand and celebrate their own “royalty” throughout U.S. history. In another instance, Robinson (2020) describes how Black history was embedded throughout each level of the social studies curriculum at OCS and how it affirmed young people. Kesha, another former OCS student, explained how she, “walked away with a sense of purpose, a sense of pride.…”