#blackchurchpower and liberatory praxis education: radical Black pedagogical design for mass movement
Date
2023
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University of Delaware
Abstract
This thesis project examines the process of developing and implementing a political education course for the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN) that orients the organization's new staff members to the Black radical values, principles, history and theories at the core of the organization's revolutionary identity. BCFSN is a national Black food justice organization that partners with Black churches, Black farmers and accomplices to create an alternative, Black-controlled food supply system that combats food apartheid. BCFSN recently expanded its operations and hired several new staff to increase its impact in the Black food sovereignty movement. With newly on-boarded staff, many of whom come to BCFSN with work backgrounds in corporate America, it was important to create a co-learning space to delve deeper into the values, history, and politico-philosophical tenets BCFSN is committed to as an organization to avoid drifting away from those values and principles as we continue to expand. The primary research methods used for this study were reviewing pedagogical theories and historical content, social immersion into my research site community, pilot course development and execution, and survey development and distribution for the participants in my research project. This project demonstrates the need for political education courses at BCFSN and similar Black, grassroots organizations that synthesize participatory and didactic pedagogical styles into their educational framework. Thoroughly integrating the personal interests and curiosities of participants, gauged from informal pre-course conversations or assessments with Black radical counternarratives and complementary forms of subversive course content will increase participants' continued engagement throughout a liberatory praxis course even if the facilitator ventures into politically disorienting schools of thought.
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Keywords
Black Radicalism, Political education, Popular education, Racial justice