1st Edition
All About Black Girl Love in Education bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love
Drawing from bell hook’s 1999 book All About Love, this volume builds on theories of love as they relate to Black Girlhood in education, shedding light on educational practices rooted in love and exploring strategies for centering Black girls and love in Grades K-12.
Bringing together voices of scholars, poets, and visual artists who theorize Black Girlhood, the collection pays particular attention to practices, acts, communities, and pedagogies of love. An antidote to the physical, emotional, and psychological violence to which Black girls in the U.S. are subjected on a daily basis at the hands of those who work in schooling environments, it shows how teachers, school leaders, community educators, and researchers might use love as a framework for changing the narrative and experiences of Black girls. Crucially, though it is in conversation with negative aspects of how Black girls experience school, it argues for a shift in perspective that highlights the myriad of ways Black girls do and can receive love within schooling spaces.
Read through one of the most influential Black feminist scholars of all time, it presents a novel alternative to the dearth of research that focuses on the violence, neglect, and exclusion Black girls experience in schools, expands the scholarship on Black girls, (re)centers love in the work that educators do, and connects theoretical orientations that characterize Black girl love, to practice both in and outside of classrooms. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, and educators working in the fields on urban education, race and ethnicity in education, gender studies, literacy, multicultural education and diversity and equity in education.
Foreword - Valerie Kinloch
Introduction: For the Love of Black Girls - Autumn A. Griffin and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
Section 1: Giving Love Words
1. Written in the Waves: Black Mermaids as Love, Memory, and Writing Muses - Dywanna Smith and Kenesha Johnson
2. #ILoveUsForReal: Healing Our Inner Child to Fiercely Love Black Girls in the Community Context - Delicia Tiera Greene and Josanique Everson
3. Love Is a Revolution: A Conversation with Renée Watson - Autumn A. Griffin
Black Girl Literacy in 3 Parts - Shanelle Gabriel
Section 2: Childhood Love Lessons
4. Returning Home: Exploring How Black Women Use Freedom as Movement - Tamara N. Moten and Cierra Kaler-Jones
5. Black Feminism in Critical Pedagogy: Daughtering as an Embodied Praxis of Love and Care - Venus E. Evans-Winters and Janice Baines
Best Friend Poem - Lyrical Faith
Section Three: Be True to Love
6. Black Girl Love in the Time of Isolation - Charlotte E. Jacobs and Heather Hairston
7. Sustaining Partnerships to Support Black Girls in STEM: The Sexy, The Heavy, and The Complexities - Natalie S. King, Laura Peña-Telfer, and Mi’Kayla Newell
8. Cultivating Voices of Black Girls in White Spaces - Sonja Cherry-Paul and Imani Paul
Renewal - Dywanna Smith
Section Four: Let Love Be in Me
9. Learning to Love: An Ode to Black Women Educators - Jaminque L. Adams, Damaris C. Dunn, and Bettina L. Love
10. A Gendered Literacy: The Practice of Caring for and Curating with Young Black Girls - Maureen Nicol
11. A Letter from One of Your Daughters of the Yam - jessica Care moore
A Conversation with Myself - Barrett Rosser
Section Five: Divine Love
12. Holy By Our Own: Theorizing Black Girl Divine Love - Amber Chevaughn Johnson, Alexis Morgan Young, and Jennifer D. Turner
13. A Place Where Souls Can Rest: Black Girl Freedom, Liberation, and Emancipation - Darius Phelps and Marcelle Mentor
14. Black Girls, Love, and Jesus: Reimagining Restorative Practices in Education Using Biblical Principles - Bettie R. Butler, Abiola Farinde-Wu, and Tierra Parsons
the time of pitch - Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Section Six: The Future of Black Girlhood
15. “Dear Sankofa”: (Re)Turning to You, With Love - Danie Marshall, Esther O. Ohito, and Celeste A. Coleman
16. Spirit, Song, and Sisterhood: Sayings of a Sun Goddess - S.R. Toliver and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
Backbones - Jamila J. Lyiscott
Epilogue - Ruth Nicole Brown
The Love and Light of Black Girls - Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz & Autumn A. Griffin
Biography
Autumn Griffin is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the NSF-funded Black Girl Brilliance STEM Grant Fellow in the Middle and Secondary Education Department at Georgia State University, USA.
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is Professor in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.
"All about [Black Girl] Love is a transformative journey that will challenge your perceptions, ignite your passion, and inspire a new era of love-centered education for Black girls. In these pages, you will find the Blackprint for a brighter, more inclusive, and profoundly loving present and future that Black Girls deserve."
Gholdy Muhammad, Professor and Author of Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum and Instruction and Co-Editor of Black Girls' Literacies."This book is a bridge between theory and practice, connecting the theoretical orientations that characterize Black girl love to tangible actions in and outside of classrooms. The authors, poets, and artists in this book offer a multifaceted commitment and spiritual guidepost to honoring Black Girl lives."
Carmen Kynard, Professor and Author of Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition"The central aims of this groundbreaking work include expanding scholarship on Black girls, who have too often been sidelined in educational discourse, and recentering love in the hearts and minds of educators. With strategies and reflection tools in hand, teachers will be equipped to enhance the educational attainment and sense of belongingness among Black girl youth, both within and outside the classroom."
Marc Lamont Hill, Presidential Professor and Author of We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility
