Schooling the Movement: The Activism of Southern Black Educators from Reconstruction Through the Civil Rights Era

A fresh examination of teacher activism during the civil rights movement

Southern Black educators were central contributors and activists in the civil rights movement. They contributed to the movement through their classrooms, schools, universities, and communities. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival research, Schooling the Movement examines the pedagogical activism and vital contributions of Black teachers throughout the Black freedom struggle. By illuminating teachers' activism during the long civil rights movement, the editors and contributors connect the past with the present, contextualizing teachers' longstanding role as advocates for social justice. Schooling the Movement moves beyond the prevailing understanding that activism was defined solely by litigation and direct-action forms of protest. The contributors broaden our conceptions of what it meant to actively take part in or contribute to the civil rights movement.