A History of Black People as Readers: A Genealogy of Critical Literacy

Introduction

“Freedom dreams are born when we face harsh conditions not with despair, but with the deep knowledge that these conditions will change…” -Tourmaline¹

The Birth of a Freedom Dream

Throughout the history of America, Black people have existed and navigated through inequitable power dynamics that have intentionally sought to quell their intellectualism, creativity, and humanity. Older generations have defied laws and societal norms to pursue literacy because of the soul belief that knowledge is a powerful tool that will undoubtedly lead to liberation. Perhaps this sentiment served as a catalyst for the many violent attempts- heavy on the word ‘attempts², of the American government to thwart literacy among Black folx throughout American history. Perhaps this heinous censorship solidified an abstract belief as a concrete fact. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalls the day his slaver put an end to his lessons, asserting that learning to read would “unfit him to be a slave.”³ Evident through Douglass’ account, this was a collective thought shared among many slavers who attempted to censor literacy, further underscoring the powerful connection between education and freedom while simultaneously inspiring many to challenge their censorship. The pernicious ideology from his slave master bothered Douglass to the core, filling him not with despair, but with a purposeful vision of the road to freedom: a freedom dream.

The effect of his words on me was neither slight nor transitory. The iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not too soon to be allayed. ... I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom,⁴

Coined by Robin D.G. Kelley⁵,  freedom dreams are powerful visions that arise in response to a critical understanding of reality. Douglass and many others such as Mattie J. Johnson⁶ and Old Lady Patsy⁷ (to name a few) shared a freedom dream of release from the bondage of slavery. As a collective and as individuals, enslaved people harnessed their imagination to invent creative ways to educate themselves when conventional methods were withheld. Their movement toward liberation formed a strong value for education and literacy in Black American culture. For a time, literacy and freedom were synonymous. The dream began to spread like wildfire, even after enslaved folx⁸ were freed. Schoolrooms began to transition from pits in the ground, to church basements, to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and even onward to virtual spaces like TikTok. Made clear through the journey of Black Americans, whenever a new adversity rose, it was met with imagination fueled by the freedom dream of liberation.

Being a Black Woman, educated on the south side of Chicago, and now educator on the south side of Chicago, I was inspired while examining the courageous act of imagining and better world and actively working toward it. The brilliance, the resilience, the finesse that blossomed as Black folx defied laws and societal norms in the pursual for literacy are a source of pride for me. In reading about the innovative strategies for communal and self-taught literacy, I could see their dreams in my experiences. I learned to read by memorizing sounds and spellings when my mom read to me. I competed in Oratory Competitions and participated Pizza Hut reading challenges with my cousins.  While reflecting on my past experiences, I felt connected to the history of Black literacy. Yet, at the same time, being a Black Woman, educated on the south side of Chicago, and now educator on the south side of Chicago I find myself concerned because the joy and the desire to learn appears to have fizzled.

I proudly teach at Owen Scholastic Academy located on the South Side of Chicago. My school is predominantly Black with a very small percentage of Latino students. The student body is small with less than 300 students in grades PreK – 8^th and only one classroom per grade level which inspires a family-oriented environment. Although we are a tight-knit community, we still face many challenges academic-wise. On our Illinois School Report Card⁹, the most up-to-date reports from 2023 show that only 19.2% of our students are proficient in ELA and only 11.4% are proficient in Math. Despite the concerning numbers, this is not reflective of the brilliance that my students demonstrate outside of the traditional classroom. My students are entrepreneurs who sell handcrafted jewelry, organizers who host coat drives for people in need, musicians who travel to perform original compositions at colleges like the University of California in LA, human beings who can discuss the complexities of freedom and interdependence through spirited debates about an anime show called Naruto. Their actions directly contradict what is reflected on their standardized tests, which sheds light on a disconnect between what my students need to know and what us teachers need to teach. While I do not believe their proficiency scores reflect their actual proficiencies, I do believe these numbers are reflective of how many of students perceive the importance of education and a concern that many teachers are harboring in regard to their respective teaching situations.

This challenge to engage students frequently arose in discussions from seminar demonstrating a collective need. As we examined the radical act of learning to read and write while Black in America, it became evident that the value of literacy has severely diminished. It feels like our students don’t value education. But why? For enslaved Black Americans, there was a drive for education because it was a direct path toward liberation in both a literal and figurative sense. What is the fuel for our students? How can we as teachers reignite the dream and employ our imagination to cultivate a hunger for learning?

In my search for answers, it occurred to me that many of my students are searching for purpose. According to educator Septima Clark¹⁰, “Learning and purpose go hand in hand.”  In our ever-changing society, human beings evolve as do our needs, our understandings, our challenges, and our vision. During times of slavery and Jim Crow, learning to write wouldn’t lead to an ‘A+,’ but it could lead to freedom if you learned to forge freedom papers. Education served as a pathway to freedom and yielded results that were immediately applicable to life. There was a clear purpose: freedom. And combined with the denied access to education, this contributed to the construction of a freedom dream. That radical imagination is fueled by purpose. If students cannot imagine a use for their education, what purpose does school serve for our students?

I believe that we can begin to answer these questions by facilitating authentic classroom experiences that lead students to imagine the ways in which school can hold purpose within their lives. It is crucial that we hold space in our classrooms for students to visualize the world they dream of, thus creating a purpose. Many of my students are aware of the past efforts to gain access to education. Many of my students can explain why we’re engaging in a particular lesson, but it is not their why. Therefore, the purpose that fueled us and those before us is different for the students of today. I do not say this to discredit the courageous efforts from the past, for understanding the connection between the past is salient to shaping the imagination. I say this to suggest the possibility our students can recognize the connection between the past and the present, but they are struggling to connect with the past in the present. To meet our students where they are, we must first ask, what conditions of reality affect them? Then we must invite them to engage in freedom dreaming, prompting them to expand on the freedom dreams that have built our society. What if our students were empowered to consider their ideas of a better world? What if our students were empowered to actualize their ideas of a better world, not in theory and abstract, but in practice and tangible incarnations?

This curriculum is designed to explore these questions by guiding and empowering students to create their own freedom dreams. By understanding the historical context and analyzing examples of freedom dreams, students will develop the skills to envision and plan for the changes they want to see in the world. They will learn that it's not enough to call out issues; they must also take the time to figure out what they want to see and feel, and then work toward that vision.