Black Teachers: A Pedagogy of Organized Resistance

On Monday, May 5, 2025, historians Jarvis Givens and Imani Perry, in conversation with Teaching for Black Lives co-editor Jesse Hagopian and Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones, will discuss the Black Teacher Archive, a digital portal centralizing materials created by professional organizations of African American educators, historically referred to as Colored Teachers Associations (CTAs).

The collection makes public the intellectual, political, and cultural contributions of Black educators during the Jim Crow era through the Civil Rights era. The BTA brings together materials from 70 archival repositories across the United States and makes available for research more than 50,000 pages authored by African American educators. The project is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in association with the Monroe C. Gutman Library Special Collections.

Jarvis Givens is a professor of education and faculty affiliate in the department of African & African American studies at Harvard University. As an interdisciplinary scholar, he specializes in 19th and 20th century African American history, history of education, and theories of race and power in education. Givens is the author of Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching.

Imani Perry is appointed jointly as professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and in African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of eight books, including Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry and the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.

These online classes with people’s historians are held at least once a month (generally on Mondays) at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET for 90 minutes. In each session, the historian is interviewed by a teacher and breakout rooms allow participants to meet each other in small groups, discuss the content, and share teaching ideas. We designed the sessions for teachers and other school staff. Parents, students, and others are also welcome to participate.