Black women are situated at the intersection of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and ability. Our bodies are read as vulnerable by the white supremacist patriarchal gaze (hooks, 2004; Morrison, 1998). Still, Black women have used our positionalities as teachers, matriarchs, leaders, and ministers to advocate for the liberation of ourselves, families, and communities. This dissertation uses archival research methods to delve into the lives of four prominent Black women educators: Lucy Craft Laney, Janie Porter Barrett, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Septima Clark. I ask: (1) How do these four Black women embody and utilize Black Feminist Epistemologies-- oppositional knowledges (Collins, 2002), oppositional looks (hooks, 1992), speaking and action (Lorde, 2007) towards their vision and enactment of education? (2) How can I creatively and innovatively engage with and (re)tell black women's legacies, while uplifting them as pedagogues? I take up Hartman’s (2019) practice of reading against the archive “to grapple with [its] power and authority” and to imagine the lives of Black women educators. This dissertation will concretize a new method that I developed called layered storytelling, where authentic and complex stories are depicted by layering different forms of text, such as poetry, vignettes, visual art, photography, and short stories. My dissertation unapologetically centers and uplifts the “more” of four Black women educators-- a few of the many Black women who took risks to see the fruition of their visions.
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