A stirring testament to the realities of Black teaching and learning in the United States and to Black educators' visions for the future. The personal accounts, educator portraits, and research findings assembled by Darrius A. Stanley in #BlackEducatorsMatter constitute an unstinting exploration of the experiences of Black K-12 teachers in the United States. Spotlighting the invaluable work of Black educators, this volume reveals that although they are underrepresented in educational institutions, they have profound positive influence not only on students of color but also on school climate and ultimately on all of society. Contributions from both emerging and established scholars lay out the historical and contemporary issues that confront Black educators. Viewing this landscape through the lens of BlackCrit and other race-centric perspectives, the contributors critically frame and explicitly name the challenges. They make plain that a common thread in the Black experience in US schools is antiblackness, which remains an endemic feature of US society even as recent social justice campaigns, including the Black Lives Matter movement, and public discourse on Critical Race Theory have brought greater awareness to longstanding inequities. This work also illuminates the efforts of Black educators to fight oppression and institutionalized racism in schools. It provides strategies that district and school leadership, including superintendents and principals, can adopt to recruit, retain, and support Black educators in K-12 schools. As this volume makes clear, such efforts will play a key role in shaping a more equitable and just educational system.
