Educate to Liberate

The most successful rebellions, those that posed the greatest threat to oppressive power structures have been grounded in political education of the people by the people. In a moment when our history is being actively distorted, ignored, hidden and erased. Now more than ever it is important for us to be our own historian

I’ve been an community educator for over half my life; a college professor in Black communities for over a decade and right now, my focus is educating multiple generations of Black people to produce, preserve, and protect their own community archives to form the basis of current and future pursuits of liberation.

Selected Course Descriptions

Black Family Archives 101

This course is intended to help students use current technology to create and maintain family archives. As our elders and youth become ancestors at an accelerated rate, we run the risk of losing our family history every day we do not document it.
In this course, students learn the skills of collecting, digitizing, organizing and storing family stories and artifacts. With this class, students will be provided with a starter kit with the basic tools and techniques of creating a digital archive.
Introduction to the Black Storytelling Tradition

This course introduces students to the Black Storytelling tradition as an element of Black Culture. It introduces the tenets of African culture; the elements, methods and modes of Black storytelling; and its significance to understanding Black history, analyzing the Black present and creating the Black future.
In this course students will complete a project using the Black storytelling mode of their choosing to tell an important family story.
Mixed Methodologies of Black Storytelling

This course introduces students to qualitative, quantitative and archival research methods used to gather data for storytelling. In the (W.E.B) DuBoisian and (Ida B.) Welsian Traditions of social science research, students will learn how to analyze quantitative reports; collect qualitative narratives; and uncover archival primary sources to provide data for Black storytelling
In this course, students will gather all types of data to tell a story about a specific Black phenomenon, condition or event and its impact across generations
Place Based Storytelling and Black Placemaking

In this course, students will learn how to apply spacial storytelling to Black communities as a way to document and preserve regional culture resulting form Black Placemaking.
In this course, students will explore various Black storytelling modes of photo and video; textiles and collages; culinary; written and spoken word; and music & dance in efforts to preserve, share and create Black spatial stories
Digital Humanities and Black Cultural Preservation

This course introduces students to the idea of the archive and encourages them to explore the ways that new technologies can enhance our abilities to preserve, present, and protect our own history.
In this course, students will partner with local families and/or community organizations to create a digital archive of artifacts that the partners provide.