Rethinking Meridians: As a Critical Knowledge Project, a Pedagogical Offering, and a Black Feminist Quilted Narrative1

Education as a Form of Liberation

With the increasingly high stakes nature of teaching and the ongoing push to teach within the adopted Common Core, there appears to be very little room for teachers to incorporate the voices and experiences of anyone whose life is not already embedded within the curriculum. Given that there is an implied dominant circle of historical privilege—where the voices of those who are white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied, cis-gendered, middle class, educated, and Christian are assumed to be and taught as if they were the norm—teachers must be provided with resources that are designed to decenter this “norm” and then center the voices of “the other.” This is an ongoing challenge but, as scholars, we are committed to developing research agendas and writing and teaching resources that advance liberatory educational possibilities for non-dominant and marginalized communities. We center this work firmly within the Black feminist tradition, drawing heavily upon the historic and foundational work of Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Audre Lorde, and the Combahee River Collective and the current work of bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Paula Giddings, Barbara Ransby, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Cheryl Wall, and Angela Davis (to name just a few). We do not have the option to resign in the face of difficulty or the luxury to hold our work hostage as we spend years pondering possible directions and solutions—because we create scholarship not simply for ourselves but for the unseen faces of people who depend on the unwavering commitment of scholars who take up justice work. We know that the ongoing work to rescue and reclaim the history and lives of Black women is important and that it is our duty—in the same vein as Alice Walker’s early work to rescue Zora Neale Hurston—to collect and share their life and experiences “for the future of our children…if necessary, bone by bone.” (Walker 1983, 92) This critical restoration work completed in the archives and then shared at the dinner tables, in book clubs, and more importantly, in classrooms, seeks to advance Paulo Freire’s idea of “conscientization,” opening it up and then expanding upon it. (hooks 1994, 14)

At the same time, we understand (and respect) that there is a necessary gulf that exits between the researcher and the teacher to ensure that every “good” research idea is not then tested on children, particularly those who exist precariously on the edge where the challenge of getting a good education is a daily struggle. So with these multiple streams of knowing in mind, we wrestled with how this new critical knowledge project of rethinking and re-centering Meridians as a text for teachers and students should be presented and positioned. Given that Meridians is available as both a print and an electronic source, we decided to challenge the contributors to think of this work in a two-dimensional way so that their text would be laden with hyperlinks where teachers could find additional resource materials to expand the lesson plan. This then became the focus of the effort to transform Meridians (even if just for a moment) into a pedagogical tool. It was quickly supported by teacher scholars across the country who were searching for materials that could be used to transform their classrooms into liberatory Black feminist think tanks where ideas are fostered, creativity is nurtured, all voices are welcomed, and all experiences are validated.

After some discussion about the #SayHerName project and the work that is being done to center and include the voices and stories of Black women and girls, Black feminist theory and #BlackGirlActivism were selected as the conceptual starting points for all of the lesson plans. Due to the variety of content area foci, and big ideas grounding the lesson plans, each lesson plan takes students on different learning paths but collectively the lessons represent multidimensional instructional opportunities for teaching about Black feminist theory. The tie that binds them together is that they each focus...