For Examining Power Through Community in the Era of Ongoing Pandemics

Abstract

Any gains in social justice and racial equity have been and continue to be catalyzed by the collective power of oppressed communities. Among the most prolific models of power through community (education, struggle, love, and action) can be found in the historical accounts of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements–particularly in the context of the United States, as well as, in the storying of Third World liberation movements all over the Global South. Consider, for example, the longstanding impact of the Highlander Research and Education Center, formerly Hi cihlander Folk School in Tennessee, USA standing as one of the clearest and most effective examples of community power using education as the practice of freedom and transformation (Adams & Horton, 1975; Glen, 1996; Preskill, 2021; Ruehl, 2021). Enacting an educational model that centers culture and local knowledge, as well as lived experiences to cultivate power through community, education leaders at the Highlander revisioned possibilities for teaching and learning (beyond the exclusionary limits of formal schooling) during what was then, at its founding, an era of ongoing inequitable social, economic, and racial pandemics in our country. Founded by Myles Horton, Don West, and Jim Dombrowski, among others, the Highlander was created as an integrated sanctuary for the working class filling a void during the Great Depression (Preskill, 2021). Initially designed to serve those living in the hills of Appalachia, sometimes referred to as “highlanders,” the school utilized, then and now, a culturally affirming pedagogical strategy. For example, the Highlander “offered classes that were social-educational activities. The folk culture of the county was expressed through the singing and fiddling of mountain songs, which—along with religious meetings—became part of the educational model, as did classes that were centered on residents’ problems” (Mosley, 2018). Eventually, these folk–and later gospel–songs would become the soundtrack to the labor and civil rights movements (Ruehl, 2021). Among education and community activists, the Highlander is perhaps more known for its shift during the 1950s and 1960s to focus on civil rights, particularly voting rights for Black people in the US. Recently during a talk at the University of Virginia’s School of Education, Keisha reminded teacher educators and future teachers about the legacies of such critical pedagogues as Septima Clark and her cousin Bernice Robinson, both teachers working at Highlander as part of the NAACP/SNCC voter-registration campaign in the South. Clark and Robinson played key roles in Highlander’s creation of citizenship schools, “designed to aid literacy and foster a sense of political empowerment within the black community” (Mosley, 2018). These workshops were early models of popular education (Freire, 2000) as well as community-based and participatory research strategies. In particular, the flattening of hierarchy, community participation, knowledge, experience, and culture were and continue to be centered in literacy development, the teaching and learning of critical life skills, social movement building, and leadership training. This model for examining and cultivating power through community is a pivotal as evidenced by the following account: