Askwith Forums Black Educators and the Struggle for Justice in Schools

Speaker: Vanessa Siddle Walker, Ed.M.’85, Ed.D.’88, president-elect, American Educational Research Association (AERA); Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American and Educational Studies, Emory University Discussant: Edith Bazile, president, Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts (BEAM) Moderator: Jarvis Givens, assistant professor of education, HGSE; Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor, Radcliffe Institute Black educators were essential to the legal victory that was Brown vs. Board of Education, but over time, they saw the promise of greater access and greater equity grow dimmer, undermined by the way this now-iconic legal milestone was actually implemented. In a forum ranging widely over the past, present, and future of the long fight for justice in American schools, Emory University historian Vanessa Siddle Walker will explore the pedagogical and advocacy models that black educators developed, despite Jim Crow, that they hoped would be enhanced with the dismantling of racist school policies. She’ll describe how these practitioners came to make sense of what ultimately became a desegregation compromise, as the ruling took effect. And in a follow-on conversation moderated by HGSE assistant professor Jarvis Givens, Walker will be joined by Edith Bazile, the president of the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts, to examine the contemporary legacy of Brown – and how the perspectives of those earlier practitioners can create a new lens through which to view the continuing critical challenges of race and education today. -- Harvard Graduate School of Education Website: http://www.gse.harvard.edu Follow us on Instagram:   / harvardeducation   Like us on Facebook:   / harvardeducation   Follow us on Twitter:   / hgse   Since its founding in 1920, the Harvard Graduate School of Education has been training leaders to transform education in the United States and around the globe. Today, our faculty, students, and alumni are studying and solving the most critical challenges facing education: student assessment, the achievement gap, urban education, and teacher shortages, to name just a few. Our work is shaping how people teach, learn, and lead in schools and colleges as well as in after-school programs, high-tech companies, and international organizations. The HGSE community is pushing the frontiers of education, and the effects of our entrepreneurship are improving the world.