Seventeen years after the Brown v Board decision, in 1971, US Senator Walter Mondale chaired a number of Select Committee hearings on Equal Educational Opportunity. One of these hearings focused on what was happening to Black teachers and principals as the country begrudgingly worked to desegregate our schools. The hearing featured testimony and supplemental documentation calling attention to the vast number of Black teachers who were losing their jobs in the Southern, dual-system states. Despite Brown's promise of desegregated schools including faculty and staff in addition to students, districts across the South were finding ways to remove Black teachers and principals, rather than allowing them to teach White kids. 

The transcripts from these hearings quite literally fell into Dr. Leslie Fenwick's lap as she began a PhD program in educational policy. The stories they held matched her own lived experience. Stories of highly qualified, highly educated Black teachers who served as community leaders, and fostered a sense of belonging and empowerment among their Black students was what Dr. Fenwick and her parents and grandparents had known. And yet, as she embarked on her PhD program, these stories weren't being told. Eventually, these transcripts would form the primary evidentiary basis for her bestselling 2022 book, Jim Crow's Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership. 

She joins us to talk about the book, her journey to writing it, and what understanding this untold history means for the ongoing quest for more teachers of color. 

 

LINKS: 

Jim Crow's Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership  

Transcript for the Senate Select Committee Hearing on the loss of Black Teachers

Dunbar High School - Washington, DC

Sumner Academy of Arts and Science - Kansas City, MO

The Summer of Soul documentary

Whitey On The Moon - Gil Scott-Heron

Sharif El-Mekki - The Center for Black Educator Development

 

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The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Val Brown. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

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