The Education of African Americans: The Road to Parity in the United States
Dr. Sharon Tettegah is the Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A distinguished scholar and leader in the field of educational psychology, her research focuses on the intersection of technology, equity, and education, with particular emphasis on the experiences of underrepresented communities. In her role as director, she has been instrumental in advancing the Center's mission to foster interdisciplinary research, promote social justice, and support the academic success of Black students and scholars.
At the symposium Dr. Tettegah will provide an insightful overview of the event’s purpose and goals. She will highlight the historical and contemporary challenges African Americans have faced in achieving educational equity, drawing attention to the systemic barriers that continue to affect access to quality education. Her introduction will set the stage by examining the complex relationship between race, education, and social progress in the U.S., and the enduring fight for parity in educational outcomes.
Moreover, Dr. Tettegah will emphasize the symposium’s role in bringing together scholars, educators, policymakers, and community leaders to explore strategies for addressing educational disparities. By fostering dialogue and sharing research, the symposium aims to develop actionable pathways toward achieving true educational parity for African Americans. Her leadership and vision will underscore the urgent need for transformative policies and practices that can create more equitable educational opportunities, from early childhood through higher education.
In addition to providing the historical context, Dr. Tettegah will outline the broader impact of educational disparities on economic mobility, civic participation, and social justice for African American communities. Through this symposium, she hopes to inspire a commitment to change, encouraging participants to engage in collaborative efforts that promote educational equity and long-term systemic reform.
Antar Tichavakunda
Antar Tichavakunda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education. Tichavakunda is a product of Washington, DC Public Schools. Prior to his doctoral studies, Tichavakunda worked as an 11th grade English teacher in DC Public Schools. Using qualitative inquiry, Tichavakunda engages in research on college readiness, Black students’ experiences at predominantly White institutions, and more broadly the sociology of race and higher education.
Dawn N. Hicks Tafari
A native New Yorker, Dawn Nicole Hicks Tafari is passionate about the arts, culture, education, and translating theory into practice. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Hofstra University; her Master of Arts in Teaching from The Johns Hopkins University; and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies as well as her Ph.D. in Educational Studies with a specialization in Cultural Studies from The University of North Carolina Greensboro. She has served as an elementary school teacher, a curriculum facilitator, an educational consultant, and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Education and Coordinator for the Elementary Education Program at Winston-Salem State University. Dawn is a HipHop Feminist whose research interests include Black Feminist Thought, Black men elementary school teachers, HipHop culture’s influence on identity development, critical race theory, and Kwanzaa as a site of resistance. Dr. Tafari is the author of “Tales from A Hip-Hop DIVA: One Girl’s Journey from the Bronx to the Ph.D.”; “Whose World is This? A Composite Counterstory of Black Male Elementary School Teachers as Hip-Hop Otherfathers”; dozens of other journal articles, book chapters, and conference presentations, and the highly acclaimed book, The Journey of Kamau Miller: HipHop Composite Counterstories for Black Men Teachers. Dawn is the 2017 recipient and 2019 nominee of the Winston-Salem State University & Wake Forest University Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Building the Dream Award and has been featured in the Winston-Salem Chronicle as “Busta Brown’s Person of the Week”. She is also co-founder of the Greensboro Kwanzaa Collective, a grassroots organization that organizes Greensboro’s citywide Kwanzaa celebration; a founding member of the steering committee for Black Girls and Women Matter Greensboro; and founder of LoveEatBuild, a social media-based, social justice-focused, advocacy initiative that promotes meaningful wellness by encouraging humans to Love fully, Eat mindfully, and Build Community.
About the Presentation
In this engaging session, Dr. Dawn N. Hicks Tafari will lead us to and through her HipHop Feminist Pedagogical journey. A journey that traverses Black Feminist and Critical Race Theory lenses, Tafari’s HipHop Feminist Pedagogy is endearing, enrichening, and empowering. Her pedagogy embraces an unapologetic resistance to racist practices that marginalize students of color and empowers students to think critically, live holistically, and creatively challenge antiquated, oppressive systems that no longer serve society as a whole.
Greg Wiggan
Dr. Greg Wiggan is a Professor of Urban Education, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty member of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is an international scholar and a national award-nominated author, scholar, researcher, public speaker, and educational consultant whose research examines the intersections between diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and school effects that promote high achievement in urban and other minoritized students. Dr. Wiggan has an impressive university, state, and nationally-recognized record of leadership and achievement in Multicultural Education, Urban Education and Diversity & Inclusion, Globalization, and Internalization and has attended conferences, published extensively (including publications with doctoral students), conducted campus workshops, and has written and presented papers and presentations in related areas. These related areas include, but are not limited to: social justice, diversity, race, urban school partnerships, culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum development, and race and representation within immigrant communities. All of these scholarly activities have been found to be strategic components related to advancing multicultural education, diversity and inclusion in the field of education. Experts in Multicultural Education must be purveyors of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as it is the foundation for the education of all students, as well as those who serve them. Dr. Wiggan’s work centers on the concept of diversity which provides a backdrop for his work to support DEI initiatives in his classroom, within his scholarly presentations and publications, and in colleges and universities with the intent to disrupt the structures of power that may lead to negative experiences for faculty of color. Dr. Wiggan has completed more than 100 publications, including over 30 education books, which appear in more than 70 countries and over 6,000 college and university libraries (WorldCat, 2023), and his book, Dreaming of a Place Called Home: Local and International Perspectives on Teacher Education and School Diversity, has been translated into German (WorldCat, 2023). Most recently, Dr. Wiggan was awarded the 2023 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Carlos J. Vallejo Memorial Award in the category of Multicultural /Multiethnic Education: Theory, Research, and Practice, and he is co-author of the 2023 book, Unbleaching the Curriculum: Enhancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Beyond in Schools and Society.
About the Presentation
This presentation provides a new, transformative perspective on education by applying the unbleaching framework to school processes such as, but not limited to curriculum development, curriculum violence, teacher pedagogy, and school leadership in U.S. public schools and higher education. The presentation explores omission and suppressed contributions of minoritized groups. It examines unbleaching for the purpose of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in school processes and practices. As case studies, the presentation introduces thinkers to often omitted contributions such as The Teachings of PtahHotep, the oldest book in the world, and The Ahmes Papyrus, the oldest mathematical document in the world, and Imhotep, first known medical doctor, and provides curricular implications. Additionally, the presentation presents strategies to promote DEI, as well as to enhance student achievement and outcomes in K-12 and higher education.
Jessica Lee Stovall
Dr. Jessica Lee Stovall is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also holds an affiliate position in Curriculum and Instruction at the UW-Madison’s School of Education. Her research in education draws on the discipline of Black Studies to explore how Black teachers create fugitive spaces to navigate and combat antiblackness at their respective school sites. Her current book project on Black teachers provides a blueprint for how all teachers can create classrooms of liberated learning for their students, and her dissertation on the topic was awarded the Critical Educators for Social Justice Dissertation Award at the 2024 American Educational Research Association annual meeting. Her dissertation work was supported by the Spencer Dissertation grant, the Ford Predoctoral Program, and the Stanford Diversity Dissertation Research Opportunity. Jessica is published in English Journal, Equity & Excellence in Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Journal of Negro Education, Philosophy of Education, and Race Ethnicity and Education, among others. She holds a B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.S. in Literature from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Race, Inequality, and Language in Education (RILE) and Curriculum and Teacher Education (CTE) at Stanford University. Before beginning her doctoral studies at Stanford, Jessica taught English and reading for 11 years in the Chicagoland area.
About the Presentation
In the face of historical trauma and systemic antiblackness, Black teachers have continually demonstrated resistance and creativity in their educational practices. This ethnographically orientated study used observations, interviews, and student artifacts to explore a group of Black teachers who participated in a liberatory design lab over a semester. This design lab taught the teachers how to design classroom spaces that centered on healing, and the subsequent learning of healing-centered pedagogies supported them in incorporating community building, emotional well-being, and restorative practices into their teaching frameworks. After employing literacies of healing in their classrooms, I found that the teachers’ Black students felt more willing to take academic risks because they felt much more socio-emotionally healthy and affirmed in their racial identities.
Marcia Watson-Vandiver
Marcia Watson-Vandiver, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at Towson University. As a former educator in Atlanta Public Schools, she taught alternative middle school students and served as a mentor for adjudicated youth and teen parents. Marcia received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction [Urban Education] from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her current research interests focus on the various intersections of Black education, including: Afrocentric schools, critical multiculturalism, anti-racism, and educational equity for historically marginalized and underserved students. Marcia’s recent books, The Healing Power of Education [Teacher’s College Press] and Unbleaching the Curriculum [Rowan and Littlefield], explore the role of corrective history and decolonial knowledge for today’s students. Other works of hers include: Unshackled: Education for Freedom, Student Achievement and Personal Emancipation [Sense], Contemporary African American Families [Routledge], Teacher Education to Enhance Diversity in STEM [Routledge], Sister Outsider in the Academy [Dio], and Race, Class, Gender, and Immigrant Identities in Education [Palgrave]. As a history methods professor, Marcia is keenly interested in reshaping pre-service teachers’ knowledge of indigenous, decolonial, and non-Western perspectives. Her recent work, “Decolonizing race and gender intersectionality in education” explores the learning experiences of Women of African Descent in order to identify the ways that education serves as both a divider and equalizer for students. Marcia currently serves as the Assistant Department Chair in the ELED department at Towson University and Inclusion Advocate [IA] for faculty hires in the College of Education.
About the Presentation
This presentation explores the intersection of pre-colonial history, student achievement, Afrocentric education. In the climate of banned books, banned bodies, and displaced experiences, this presentation examines the benefits of Afrocentric schools and the role of education as self-healing power. The perceptible omissions of Black contributions in curricular discourse span far beyond recent legislation in Florida. Nationally, the U.S. is grappling with systemic “undoings,” specifically in relation to racial, gender, and sexual accessibility. To that end, Afrocentric curricula and pedagogy provide an imperative counter-narrative. This presentation reveals that the students and teachers at Afrocentric schools describe their school as having: (a) a unique learning environment, (b) support systems, (c) devotion – or spiritual affirmations, (d) evidences of Black education, (e) a reframing of Afrocentricity, and (f) education that promotes positive and transformative Black identity. The results of this research are particularly important when considering the lack of multiculturalism found in traditional public schools and the moderate achievement level of public schools.
Rachel McMillian
Rachel McMillian is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a curriculum theorist and educational researcher, her work broadly explores two intersecting avenues: Black Education and Critical Prison Studies. More specifically–through counter storytelling–she focuses on 1) the schooling and educational experiences of Black people who were (wrongfully) incarcerated as children/youth and, 2) Black liberatory education and curriculum that occurs within spaces of confinement and enclosure. McMillian's interdisciplinary scholarship is inspired by her years of experience as a social studies teacher, her relationships and work with both formerly and currently incarcerated people, and her lived experiences as someone directly impacted by mass incarceration.
About the Presentation
In this presentation, Dr. Rachel McMillian will critically explore the question: What can teachers, students, and educational policymakers learn from Black people who are incarcerated? Through storytelling, she will discuss the importance of centering the voices of those who’ve experienced incarceration in K-12 classrooms; the imperative to infuse a prison abolitionist pedagogy within classrooms; and her collaborative curriculum building with both currently and formerly incarcerated people.
Terrance Wooten
Terrance Wooten is the Lester D. Coltrane III Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. His scholarly interests are located at the intersections of Black studies, gender and sexuality studies, studies of poverty and homelessness, and carceral studies. He has published articles in differences, Feminist Formations, The Black Scholar, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, American Psychologist, and Kalfou and is currently finishing his first book manuscript, under contract with the University of California Press.
About the Presentation
This introductory talk will give a brief overview of the significance and relevance of Black education and educators in K-16 contexts, placing emphasis on the structural challenges Black learners face as well as the contributions Black educators have made to name, challenge, and persist against those challenges. As a through line, I will underscore the pressing need to focus on and (re)center Black education in the midst of an ongoing shift toward multicultural inclusivity and persistent antiBlackness that insists on ignoring and erasing the specific needs and history of Black learners and educators.
Terrell Morton
Dr. Terrell R. Morton (@DrTRMorton) is an Assistant Professor of Identity and Justice in STEM Education at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is an alumnus of North Carolina A&T State University (B.S. Chemistry), University of Miami (MS Neuroscience), and UNC Chapel Hill (Ph.D. Education - Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies). Dr. Morton identifies as a Scholar-Activist! His work strives to transform the positioning and understanding of Blackness in mainstream education, specifically STEM, seeking justice and joy for Black women, Black students, and other minoritized individuals given the social-cultural-political-historical positioning of their identities. He is an accomplished, emerging scholar, having published in an array of academic and lay spaces, given over 50 global and national talks and presentations, and obtained over $13 million dollars in external grants. Through every endeavor, he strives to “walk it like he talks it.”
About the Presentation
Race essentialism is the ideological belief that race is biologically innate, thereby implying the people of the same race present the same behaviors, decisions, and outcomes. Historically, race essentialism has been used to justify the oppression of Black people in ways that have rendered them as anti-human. This belief was maintained across all social institutions, including education. Contemporarily, race essentialism remains a driving ideology in higher education, specifically STEM higher education as it manifests through policies, curriculum, and practices that dictate Black students’ experiences, decision-making, and outcomes. In this presentation, I leverage race critical theories to demonstrate the presence and impact of race essentialism in postsecondary STEM and its implications for Black students. After unpacking race essentialism, I put forward strategies rooted in Black liberatory thinking and multidimensionality that challenge the position and power of race essentialism in STEM.
Sundiata Cha-Jua
Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, from which he earned a Ph.D. in 1993, and in African American Studies. Dr. Cha-Jua's research agenda consists of explorations of Black racial formations, Urban histories/community studies, Radical Black Intellectual Traditions, and culturally relevant pedagogical practices. He is specifically interested in investigating African American community formation, lynching, historical materialism, African American historiography, social movement theory, and Black social movements.
Cha-Jua has been President of the National Council for Black Studies (2012-2014) and is a member of the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He has served as Senior Editor of The Black Scholar (2011-2015), Associate Editor of the Journal of African American History (2015-2018) and a Contributing Editor onThe Black Scholar (2005-2012) and the Journal of Black Studies (2004-2015) and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of African American Studies (2006-2014). Cha-Jua is a Life member of the National Council for Black Studies and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Dr. Cha-Jua is a founding scholar/trainer of the Policing in a Multiracial Society Program (PMSP). Started in 2012, PMSP provides systematic anti-racial bias education and training for police recruits attending the University of Illinois’s Police Training Institute (PTI) and researches the racial attitudes of police and the effectiveness of anti-racist training.
Since September 2015, Cha-Jua has written a biweekly Op-Ed commentary, “RealTalk: A Black Perspective” for the News Gazette of Champaign, Illinois.
He has been engaged with local and national Black liberation movement organizations since his teen years. He has been a member of the executive board of the St. Louis-based Organization for Black Struggle (OBS), a member of the National Council of the Black Radical Congress (BRC) and is an organizer for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM).
