Ronald E. Chennault – författare

Liberation and Education brings together a collection of essays about Black educators' and organizations' quests to cultivate and employ educational strategies for the liberation of Black people. The contributions examine the enduring nature of Black people's thinking about education prior to and through enslavement to the present. It documents a variety of critical accounts of how Black people have developed ways to free themselves mentally from the legacies of slavery, the view of Black inferiority, and historical and systemic racism.

Liberation and Education brings together a collection of essays about Black educators' and organizations' quests to cultivate and employ educational strategies for the liberation of Black people. The contributions examine the enduring nature of Black people's thinking about education prior to and through enslavement to the present. It documents a variety of critical accounts of how Black people have developed ways to free themselves mentally from the legacies of slavery, the view of Black inferiority, and historical and systemic racism.

Consider this: Restrictions placed by state legislatures on what schools can teach about America's history of conquest and enslavement. Broad bans enacted by local school boards that remove meaningful books from school curricula and the shelves of libraries. Court rulings that muddy the distinction between what counts as private versus public expressions of religion in public school settings and that open the door to publicly funded religious education. All of these recent actions chip away at the foundation of public education in America. But how did we get here? Decades of elite public discourse (talk and text) about public education helped to bring us to this point. Much of this conversation is anti-public. It includes statements by major elected officials, education advocacy organizations, journalists in mainstream press outlets, and other influential actors. Chennault casts light on the cultural and political processes at work and challenges the unquestioned assumptions beneath the surface of this discourse, with the hopes that we can transform and strengthen public education.