Futuring Black Lives - (Black Lives and Liberation) by Maisha T Winn

About the Book

Charting the motivations and goals of Independent Black Institutions in education and the arts

Book Synopsis

Futuring Black Lives is a historical ethnography examining Black institution builders in the late 1960s and early 1970s and their work to leverage the power of publications and the literary imagination to engage "concerned men and women" in conversations about the educational journeys and futures of Black children. While many began as reactions to anti-Blackness and American public schooling failing Black children, Independent Black Institutions (IBIs) came to be viable ecosystems anchored in a shared Black value system preparing Black children in three areas: identity, purpose, and direction.

The rationale for establishing and valuing IBIs remains highly relevant, given the sociopolitical landscape of education today. In addition to persistent racial disparities in academic achievement and Black students' highly disproportionate experiences of punishment and "discipline," friction and legislation against critical examination of race, racism, and racist ideas in school settings are front and center, and children's and young adult literature are under attack through censorship and outright book bans. Yet Black institution builders left useful maps of and for the educational future/s of Black children that remain available in journals, newspapers, pamphlets, and other ephemera. Author Maisha T. Winn demonstrates how and why the historiography-grounded futuring of Black education can and should inform current pursuits of equity, justice, and liberation through education.

Review Quotes

From the foreword: "Futuring Black Lives shows that cultural literacy is as essential to survival as food, shelter, safety, and community."
--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

About the Author

Maisha T. Winn is the Excellence in Learning Graduate School of Education Professor at Stanford University, where she also leads the Equity in Learning Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. She is the author of Justice on Both Sides: Transforming Education Through Restorative Justice.