From launching community-driven schools to spearheading desegregation and beyond, Black women have been at the helm of innovating education.
From integrating the nation’s schools to movements away from conventional learning for more alternative approaches, the 60s and 70s were a time of tremendous educational change.
Whether boldly leading the charge to desegregate the nation’s schools and colleges in many regions, launching alternative schools and curricula, or investing in the community in innovative ways, Black women have been at the forefront of this change, working as the blueprint for progress. Their impact on education alone remains undeniable and can still be felt today in many ways.
While the nation’s schools were officially desegregated in 1954, thanks to the landmark case Brown vs. the Board of Education, it took several years for them to become integrated. It wasn’t until 1960 that a six-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges courageously became the first to integrate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. She was escorted to school by federal agents for her safety in the beginning days as she and her family endured harassment and severe racism along the way. Though she spent her entire first year at her school as the only pupil — all her peers refused to join — her bravery had a domino effect.
While students like Bridges bravely integrated their schools, plenty of adults were working to create more equitable education opportunities for all. In 1964, just four years after Bridges’ first day, several Civil Rights organizations, including the NAACP, launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Civil Rights leader Ella Jo Baker was an integral key player in the program that brought college students from throughout the country to the southern state to help register Black voters. It also worked to establish schools for Black children to keep them safe and offer them engaging alternatives to their conventional school curriculum.
The program for children has evolved and exists today as the Children’s Defense Fund. Those who go through the program to become trainers today are dubbed Ella Baker Trainers and work to provide an integrated reading curriculum to students in need.
As the Freedom Summer Project worked against ignorance in the South, the women of the Black Panthers eventually launched their own version: the Oakland Community School. In 1973, the school was launched as an alternative for low-income Black students. Their school prioritized Black history in its curriculum and provided students with three meals a day. Their practice of providing meals to the students became the blueprint for what is known as the supplemental nutrition assistance program for women and children today.
Even though America’s education system has undergone many different iterations, the impact of these trailblazers is evident today. The Black Panthers’ community-based approach is still modeled in public schools as the Freedom Schools have taken on a new life completely for the modern era. Meanwhile, the bravery of students like Bridges still inspires many educators, students, and leaders alike. You can delve further into their legacies through films, books, and cultural institutions like the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Their legacies are worth brushing up on, especially during Women’s History Month, when we collectively remember and honor the women in history who dared not just to want change but who did something about it.
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