Black intellectual cultures and ideals: educational philosophy in nineteenth-century African American literature, 1856-1910

Abstract

Black Intellectual Cultures and Ideals: Educational Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature, 1856-1910 explores how the goals of educational and moral attainment undergirded Black intellectual-activists’ racial uplift initiatives and notions of leadership. Examining Colored Convention minutes, Charlotte Forten’s Life on the Sea Islands (1864) and Serena A. M. Washington’s little-known Biography of George T. Downing (1910), among other texts, I argue that Black women writers’ rhetorical practices, organizational activism and publication histories empowered their calls to challenge professional marginalization and racism, while also shaping ideas about the future trajectory of Black leadership classes. Freeborn northern Black women, who were groomed by Black male social networks and who viewed teaching and authorship as interconnected forms of educational advocacy, utilized urban spaces and narratives to engage in American social reform, particularly the Abolition, Colored Conventions and Freedmen’s Education movements. Rather than solely examining traditional sites of education such as the classroom, this study interrogates a broad scope of Black women’s education-themed collaborative writing practices and cultural criticism that operated to historicize Black leaders’ advancements and future goals.