Givens Stresses Importance of Black Educators’ Role in Quest for Racial, Social Justice in America during Kennard Lecture

Wed, 10/18/2023 - 01:16pm | By: David Tisdale

The role of Black educators has too often been left out in the story of the quest for civil rights in America, including intentional exclusion and erasure of its evidence by those in the white economic and political power structures. But Harvard University professor Dr. Jarvis Givens is helping to change that narrative.

Dr. Givens shared his research on that topic Oct. 17 at the first Clyde Kennard Lecture, held in the Joe Paul Theater on The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and presented by its Center for Black Studies. In his talk, Dr. Givens covered the history of Black American educators’ efforts to subvert the racist system that prevented the educational advancement of African Americans, including through structures implemented from slavery up through the middle of the last century that purposively undermined their academic achievement.

Underfunding of Black schools and imposition of curriculums that suppressed learning not conforming to the hegemonic white cultural narrative, and violent suppression of the teachers who resisted make up this tragic story. With time, patience and careful examination of the materials left behind over the last century-plus, Dr. Givens has pulled back the curtain on that story through discovery and arrangement of those materials to fill in the gaps and answer important questions.

“Often lost in the story of the American Civil Rights Movement is the role of the teacher, the secretive actions of African American educators in the face of opposition,” Dr. Givens said, further noting the important role of the Black teacher associations with which they affiliated and who supported their work.

The author of Fugitive Pedagogy and School Clothes, Dr. Givens’ work centers on spotlighting the impacts Black educators had in the schools where they taught and the witness of their students to a system in which they were at once oppressed and developed academically and socially, as their teachers managed the constraints imposed by the white power structures to develop young minds in preparation for them to succeed in a world where they would be marginalized and unwelcome in its social, political and economic circles.

“Their [students] collective memories, their individual stories, become a communal utterance,” Dr. Givens said in discussing that student witness he details in School Clothes.

He also noted the work of famed Black educator Carter Woodson, author of The Mis-Education of the Negro, as a key figure in the work to subvert the hegemonic white power structures that controlled Black schools and curriculum. Those Black educators inspired by Woodson challenged the system and taught their students the real story of America and its failure to meet its promise of liberty and justice for all. Those who were caught often lost their jobs or worse - their lives.

Dr. Givens spoke of one of those teachers, Tessie McGee at the Webster Parish Training School in Minden, Louisiana, who employed Woodson’s work in her own subversive instruction in “making the necessary revisions” to the mandatory curriculum laid out by the local white school board, teaching her students about key figures and their exploits in the story of Black America that would otherwise have gone untold.

“Fugitive pedagogy draws from the archetype of the fugitive slave,” Dr. Givens noted, in referring to the efforts of Black slaves who found creative ways to teach themselves how to read, write and develop their own minds in the face of strict rules forbidding such initiative.

Throughout history up to today, teachers, Dr. Givens lamented, are too often thought of as simply bureaucrats teaching to a test. But he rejected that notion in his concluding remarks, saying they’ve shown throughout our history, including through his own research of Black American education, that the personal sacrifices they’ve made over time for their students debunk that notion.

He also urged better preservation of the materials they’ve left behind, as well as that of the Black teacher associations that supported their efforts to bring a holistic education to their students.

A native of Hattiesburg, Clyde Kennard made several attempts to enroll at then Mississippi Southern College, now USM, but was denied entry by college, state and local officials. Although his efforts were obstructed, Kennard persisted until he was falsely accused and convicted of multiple crimes, then ultimately sentenced to seven years at Parchman Farm, now the Mississippi State Penitentiary. While there, Kennard was diagnosed with cancer but was denied proper medical treatment until he was critically ill. He was released on parole in January 1963 and died July 4, 1963, at the age of 36.

On March 30, 2006, Kennard was declared innocent in Forrest County (Miss.) Chancery Court – the same court where he had been convicted decades earlier – after subsequent investigations showed he had been framed. To atone for its role in this injustice, USM in 1993 renamed its student services building Kennard-Washington Hall in honor of Kennard and Dr. Walter Washington, the first African American to earn a doctorate from the university. USM also honors Kennard's legacy through a scholarship program that bears his name, and now also with the Clyde Kennard Lecture.

USM education professor Dr. Tom O’Brien, a member of the Clyde Kennard Lecture Planning Committee, hailed Dr. Givens as “the nation’s top scholar” for his work in the field of Black educational history.

“He has revised the narrative to be much more than ‘separate but equal’ - his mining of archival sources-- that are hard to find, and often inaccessible -- has led to a fresh portrait of Black Americans defying the odds, to improve education of not only for Black children, but of children from all races in America,” Dr. O’Brien said.   

Following his talk, Dr. Givens reflected on Kennard’s legacy and his being the speaker for the inaugural program. “I’m so grateful to be a part of this, and in keeping alive his [Kennard’s] memory and his quest, his sacrifice, for the education of all.”

Learn more about the USM Center for Black Studies and how to support the Kennard Lecture.