This case study involves a new school superintendent, unions, parent groups, and a school board. The case demonstrates how the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic impacted the relationships between a school board, teacher and administrator unions, parent organizations, and the school superintendent. It is the story of…

This case describes how, after being hired by a large urban school district in the southern United States, a Black male superintendent's relationship with his stakeholders deteriorated due to disagreements about his equity-based leadership approach. Three incidents occurred during his tenure, which he believed to be racially motivated. Yet, the…

"Jim Crow's Pink Slip" exposes the decades-long repercussions of a too-little-known result of resistance to the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision: the systematic dismissal of Black educators from public schools. In 1954, the Supreme Court's "Brown" decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but…

In 1963--a racially-charged time in the United States--James Baldwin delivered "A Talk to Teachers," urging educators to engage youth in difficult conversations about current events. We concur with Giroux (2011, 2019) that political forces influence our educational spaces and that classrooms should not be viewed as apolitical, but…

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it sheds light on an intergenerational leadership process experienced by two African American women. This piece is a leadership story situated within a School of Education in higher education that describes the challenges faced by a Dean with many over 10 years in the role and a newly minted Associate…

As institutions of higher education across the nation strive to prepare the next generation of student leaders, Dr. King's words echo in our ears: "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there 'is' such a thing as being too…

Due to its direct approach and its detailed analysis of race, the "A More Perfect Union" (AMPU) speech makes for a likely primary source to be included in a lesson addressing Obama's racial significance. As social studies teacher-educators who draw from critical perspectives on race and racism, the authors hope to see Obama's speech used…

On the night of Feb. 8, 1960, J. Charles Jones, then a student of religion and psychology at Johnson C. Smith University, knew instinctively what it was he needed to do for his generation. He first met with a handful of other classmates and friends, letting them know what he had just learned on the radio--other Black students in neighboring…

During the 1990s an African American university band director brought together Rosa Parks and Mark Camphouse for a performance of Camphouse's composition, A Movement for Rosa. Teaching the composition, the conductor and Camphouse communicated with language describing musical and lived realities that student musicians attempted to express and…

African-American women's leadership experiences and "herstories" are absent from the leadership canon. In the context of preparation, practice, and research, a few cornerstones of leadership (power, control, authority, and influence) have historically been used in a negative fashion to marginalize, silence, and erase the accomplishments of…

Ruth Simmons made a big news splash a decade ago when she was named president of Brown University, making her the first Black president of an Ivy League institution. She made another splash three years later by naming a committee to investigate Brown's role in the slave trade and make recommendations on possible reparations. Reflecting on her…

Dr. John Hope Franklin chronicled the experiences of African-Americans like no one before him, forcing America to recognize Black history as American history. His contributions were innumerable and his impact was abiding. In celebration of his life and legacy, the authors profile the celebrated scholar and activist, Dr. John Hope Franklin.

As the new vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, Dr. Randolph W. Bromery had not given any thought to moving up to chancellor. But the president of the UMass system, Dr. Robert C. Wood, had contemplated the possibility. Then he made it happen. Indisputably, Wood's gamble worked out. For eight…

Examining Black church support of higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this article highlights the longstanding project of African-American self-determination. Motivated donors, many of who would not in their lifetime see the fruits of their gifts, made faithful investments in the project of racial uplift.…

In the 1960s, as part of the black freedom struggle in the United States, African-American educators increasingly achieved the position of school principal in the nation's big cities, helping to transform that office into a more dynamic force for school reform. This article presents the accomplishments and the struggles of one such principal,…