Dr. Bettina L. Love holds the prestigious William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. In 2022, the Kennedy Center recognized Dr. Love as one of the Next 50 Leaders dedicated to making the world more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate. As a co-founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN), Dr. Love actively contributes to its mission of nurturing and empowering teachers and parents who are committed to fighting injustice within their educational institutions and communities. She has played a pivotal role in overseeing the distribution of over $350,000 in grants to abolitionist initiatives across the nation. Notably, Dr. Love is also a founding member of the Task Force that initiated the groundbreaking program "In Her Hands," one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. This program has successfully disbursed more than $15 million to support Black women residing in Georgia. Renowned as a highly sought-after public speaker, Dr. Love covers a wide range of compelling topics in her engagements, including abolitionist teaching, anti-racism, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, educational reparations, and the use of art-based education to foster youth civic engagement. Her profound insights and expertise have earned her recognition in various news outlets, including NPR, PBS, The Daily Beast, Time, Education Week, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2018, Georgia’s House of Representatives presented Dr. Love with a resolution for her impact on the field of education Dr. Love is also the celebrated author of the bestseller We Want To Do More Than Survive, solidifying her position as a leading voice in the field of education and social justice.
Dr. Ivory A. Toldson is the national director of Education Innovation and Research for the NAACP, professor of counseling psychology at Howard University and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Negro Education. Previously, Dr. Toldson was appointed by President Barack Obama to devise national strategies to sustain and expand federal support to HBCUs as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (WHIHBCUs). He also served as president and CEO of the QEM Network and contributing education editor for The Root, where he debunked some of the most pervasive myths about African-Americans in his Show Me the Numbers column. Dr. Toldson is the executive editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Research, published by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. He is also the author of Brill Bestseller, No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear about Black People. Dr. Toldson is ranked among the nation’s top education professors as a member of Education Week’s Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, an annual list recognizes university-based scholars across the nation who are champions in shaping educational practice and policy.
Erica B. Edwards, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University. She is a former urban middle-school teacher, youth organizer, and non-profit program coordinator. Her research makes use of community-engaged qualitative methodologies to advance educational justice, particularly with Black girls affected by the school-prison nexus. Her works have documented the schooling experiences of Black girls on probation, Black girls' STEM engagement among those chronically disciplined, and the counter-narratives of Black girls remanded to alternative schools. Dr. Edwards also narrates the experiences of Black women who teach across the P-20 school spectrum. She takes interest in how education policy affects their pedagogical choices and personal experiences, demonstrating the unique and ongoing relations of social domination in their caregiving work. Considering the central ideological role of popular culture in Black women and girls' experiences, Dr. Edwards also writes about the educative value of television, film, and music. She co-authored Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts: Clarity in the matrix and has written several articles demonstrating popular culture's role in contemporary social conflict. As a qualitative methodologist, Dr. Edwards has most recently taken up Black Joy, Rest, and Play as methods to advance education for liberation and looks to partner with Black women education leaders working to re-vision schooling for and with Black children.
Dr. Woodson is a member of the Black EpiSTEMologies Project and Abolitionist Teaching Network. She earned her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at Michigan State University.
In November 2023, al Qaeda’s 2002 “Letter to the American People” went viral on social media. Many young Black activists read the document for the first time. What did they think about it? How does it serve their visions of democracy?
In Knuck if You Buck: Black Kids and Global Majority Movements, Woodson reminds us how Black freedom dreams were manipulated during the Red Scare, and how international chatbots and trolls threaten Black kids' racial literacy in similar ways today. As Black churches and grassroots organizations work to find new relevance, some of us already lead in spaces equipped to answer questions about Pan-Africanism, constitutional fidelity, revolution, and hope. Basically, if we don't nurture the radical in Black kids' imaginations, they'll find someone else who will.
Lori Patton Davis, PhD is one of the most highly respected, accomplished and influential scholars in the field of higher education. She is author of more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and other academic publications appearing in venues such as The Journal of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, Journal of College Student Development, Urban Education and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Her research has been cited in more than 6,000 publications and funded by grants from the Spencer Foundation, Lumina Foundation, American Psychological Foundation and an array of other entities. She has served on seven editorial boards for journals in the field of education and was previously associate editor of QSE. She was the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division J Equity and Inclusion Officer for six years. The American College Personnel Association (ACPA) members elected her to a two-year term as the first Director of Equity and Inclusion on the Association’s national governing board. Lori has received many national awards for her scholarly contributions and was recognized in the Edu-Scholar Rankings among the top 200 educators in the United States. She is a frequently sought-after expert on a wide range of education topics. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Huffington Post, Diverse Issues in Higher Education and dozens of other media outlets have quoted Lori and featured her research. She has also advised university presidents and other senior administrators, philanthropic foundation executives, culture center directors, and educators in urban K-12 schools.
Tyrone C. Howard is a professor of education at UCLA in the Urban Schooling Division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He is also the director of Center X, a consortium of urban school professionals working toward social justice and educational equity in transforming Los Angeles schools. In addition, he is the director and founder of the Black Male Institute at UCLA, an interdisciplinary cadre of scholars, practitioners, community members, and policymakers dedicated to improving the educational experiences and life chances of Black males. Professor Howard’s research is concerned primarily with academic achievement of youth in urban schools. His work has centered on the achievement gap facing African American and other culturally diverse students, and the importance of providing teachers the skills and knowledge to assist them in reversing persistent underachievement. Before entering higher education, Dr. Howard was a classroom teacher in the Compton Unified School District. A native of Compton, California, Dr. Howard is one of the foremost experts on race, culture, teaching, and learning in urban schools. His book Race, Culture, and the Achievement Gap is a Teachers College Press bestseller that examines the roles that race and culture play in educational outcomes. Professor Howard has been a frequent contributor on National Public Radio and is also a contributor to The New York Times Educational Issues Forum. Dr. Howard has published more than 50 peer review journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports. In 2007 he was awarded an Early Career Award by the American Educational Research Association.
Follow the Leader: Supporting Black Children to Cultivate Their Future Selves
In this session, we discussed how Black educators, caregivers, and cultural workers lead by following the interests, inquisitiveness, and genius of Black children. Such leadership often requires an interrogation of power dynamics for both adults and children, which can be difficult for all parties involved.
The Devil Told You He Was Coming But You Didn't Believe Him: Critical Race Theory and Prophecies of Resistance
In the current moment where Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been wrongly maligned, we find ourselves in a moment where disinvestment and isolation of Black students in certain school districts has deepened. Where white supremacy has been a constant in the school experiences of Black children, the current moment is part of a centuries-long fight for quality education. Key in understanding this struggle is the fact that the ebbs and flows of our resistance always bring us back to the reality that we must face our detractors head-on. In light of this reality, the talk will focus on what educators and researchers can actively do to build our capacity to fight.
Punished for Dreaming: The Case for Abolitionist Teaching & Educational Reparations
Dr. Love told the story of her generation, the Hip Hop generation – children of the ‘80s and '90s – who came of age when mass incarceration and educational policies put unmistakable, identical targets on the backs of Black children. Crime reform and education reform merged to label Black children as crack babies, Super Predators, and thugs, and told the nation they were nothing more than an achievement gap. Dr. Love’s presentation vividly explained how the last four decades of educational reform laid the foundation for each book ban, CRT ban, and the never-ending goal of reformers to extract from Black education for their own gain. Her talk will end with a road map for repair, arguing for educational reparations with transformation for all children at its core.
Normalizing Black Student Success. Bright Spots from the Field
In this keynote session, Tyrone Howard lifted up examples of Black student success from schools across the country. Using case studies from schools that have defied odds to create affirming, joyful, and culturally centered learning environments for Black students, this keynote offers insights, ideas, strategies and solutions.
Voicing Our Pain: Speaking and Acting for Our Children In the Face of Anti-Black Silencing
The current US political environment is determined to erase, ignore, and silence the histories and experiences of Black people. Although states like Florida and Texas are the most prominent proponents of anti-Black curriculum perspectives, the UCLA Law School’s CRT Forward website documents legislation, bills, and ordinances in EVERY state across the nation to prohibit teaching authentic US History and literature that helps students understand the central role that race, racism, slavery, and White supremacy play in shaping the nation. This presentation argues that we (parents, community organizations, churches, academics, and teachers and administrators, where possible) must begin to educate, organize, and mobilize to speak up and act on behalf of Black children if we are to ensure Black futures and those of subsequent generations.
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