ABSTRACT:
The article analyzes the North American context and strategies of the past and present Black American liberation. The author argues that despite the terror experienced by Black Americans during the process of slavery, in the struggle for civil rights, and in overcoming institutionalized racism, in their daily lives they experienced forms of psychic resilience nourished by the spirituality of the Black people, their thought informed by the Spirit. The collective courage of Black Americans and liberation pedagogy in the freedom struggle emerged out ofthis spiritually informed thought. All of this can be understood as an essentially liberating educational process. The Pan-African/Black intellectual tradition, understood as education for the pedagogy of liberation, offers a theoretical lens for the analysis and interpretation of this movement and struggle for freedom. This interpretive lens is absent from the curriculum and the professional preparation of educators and researchers in the United States. The author discussed the activism of Pan-African intellectual and Guyanese historian Walter Rodney (1942-1980) to synthesize this theoretical lens.
Keywords:
Education; North American Black people; Pan-Africanism