At the close of the Civil War the United States was forced to grapple with the tremendous challenge of what to do with the millions of newly freed men, women, and children who, for more than three centuries, had been denied basic human rights, including learning how to read and write. During Reconstruction, several educational institutions were…

In an age of increasing pressures on the future workforce, the Presidents' Round Table, a network of African-American community college presidents and chief executives, seeks to meet the demand for supplying and training the next generation of educated employees for the evolving job picture. Among its varied goals, the Round Table works to empower…

Three years before his Nobel Prize, Dr. King shared his vision of non violence in a televised interview published in this article for the first time in print. King and his father both began their lives given the name "Michael" King. During a 1934 trip to Nazi Germany to attned the Baptist World Alliance Conference, the elder R. King…

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…

In a time of alarm about the poisoning of electoral politics, public passions inflamed by sophisticated techniques of mass polarization, and fears that the country is losing control of its collective future, higher education is called upon to take leadership in "reinventing citizenship." It needs to respond to that call on a scale unprecedented in…

The primary purpose of this study was to describe and explore, through interviews, how African American female principals sustain and maintain authority. This study investigated what it takes to become the authority, and how to reinforce authority and ensure that authority is understood, in administrative level school leadership positions where…

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…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and gain an in-depth understanding of the personal, professional, and sociocultural experiences of ten African American female school leaders serving as assistant principals, principals, and central office administrators in four suburban school districts in the southeast region of the…

While all educational leaders face challenges in achieving success, African American female principals often face a unique set of challenges associated with the complexity of their gender, race, and, as examined in this study, age. This case study investigates the experiences of two highly visible, early career African American female principals…

This autophenomenography describes multicultural leadership in school counseling from the perspective of a female African American school counselor; who served as a lead counselor, researcher, and participant of a research study, while employed in a predominantly White-culture school district. The theoretical framework grounding this study was…

The superintendency is the most male-dominated position in education (Alston, 2000; Brunner, 2000). Although statistical data reveal the disproportion between males and women in superintendent positions, the data also report a greater discrepancy in the number of African American women who have obtained superintendent positions. This qualitative…

This research study was conducted as an autoethnographic study of me and supplemented with three African-American female administrators' perspectives and experiences as school administrators. The narrative process was used to tell all of our stories. The narrative process enabled me to tell my story and how my story relates to the stories of…

Booker T. Washington, a founding father of African American education in the United States, has long been studied, revered, and reviled by scholars and students. Born into slavery, freed and raised in the Reconstruction South, and active in educational reform through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Washington sought to use…

In this study, I discuss the benefits of Black feminist caring (BFC) in educational leadership. I suggest that the ethic of care in educational leadership is a manifestation of strength when serving disadvantaged student populations. This article is based on a qualitative, exploratory, multicase study that examines the ethic of care in the…