African American Education via Community-Based Historical Inquiry (CREATE Center Event)

About the Discussion
Historians have often shown that the historical vantage points and perspectives of African Americans – including Black children – have been silenced or erased from archives, museums, and public spaces. These silences can limit our understanding of Black people’s knowledge, perspectives, and contributions to the history of Black education in the U.S. Hence, it is important to address these silences by conducting research that foregrounds the historical voices and perspectives of African American schoolchildren in the past. In this talk, Dr. Kimberly Ransom will discuss her work as an interdisciplinary critical historian who is committed to unsilencing voices and perspectives of African Americans in the history of education through research and public history. She has worked alongside her research participants in their community to study their experiences and to curate spaces where their histories can be exhibited and used as catalysts for equitable public education and dialog across diverse constituencies.

Dr. Ransom will invite the audience to consider the potential role of scholars to address racial injustice through community-based historical inquiry (CBHI). CBHI privileges data rooted in community memory and personal collections along with archival data. She will discuss methodological approaches to CBHI and its potential to support community efforts to center previously untold stories of their educational pasts. After her talk, community leaders and public historians, Ms. Paulette Newberns and Ms. Amanda McKinstry will draw upon their expertise in historic preservation to discuss their ongoing efforts to preserve African American educational history in Pickens County, Alabama through community-based historic preservation. They will share insight about leading the restoration of a Rosenwald Schoolhouse, the preservation of Rosenwald alumni networks across the country, and their experience working in collaboration with a university researcher.

At a time when communities are interrogating and demolishing monuments that commemorate histories of racial abuse and oppression, this special event will highlight how historians and communities collect and examine community memory and personal collections to shape new monuments that commemorate the historical ideas, knowledges, humanity, voices, and perspectives of African American’s’ educational experiences.

About Dr. Ransom
Dr. Kimberly C. Ransom is an interdisciplinary historian who studies the History of African American Education and the History of Childhood. Her research examines the oral histories and material objects of Black children who once attended segregated schools in the Deep South during the Jim Crow Era (1940-1969). As a public scholar and artist, Kimberly also uses her historical research to create public exhibits related to African American childhood in and around schools. In her most recent project, she has worked in partnership with her dissertation respondents to create a local museum in the sole remaining Rosenwald Schoolhouse in Pickens County, Alabama.

About Ms. Paulette Locke-Newberns
Ms. Paulette Locke-Newberns is a community leader and public historian who has been actively working for over a decade to restore the Historic Pickensville Rosenwald School. Working alongside her sisters and a collective of community members, Ms. Paulette has led grassroots historic restoration efforts which have included fundraising, preservation and construction, community programs, and public scholarship initiatives. Currently, Ms. Paulette and the Pickensville Board have secured funding to complete restoration of the schoolhouse and have also been offering COVID safe programming to the community on the schoolhouse grounds. A native of Pickensville, Alabama and an alumnus of Pickensville Rosenwald School, Ms. Paulette has been committed to restoring the schoolhouse to its historical position as a pillar of community education and advocacy.

About Ms. Amanda McKinstry
Ms. Amanda McKinstry is a community leader and public historian who has been actively working for decades to sustain the alumni network of the historic Hopewell Rosenwald School. As a previous president of the Hopewell Alumni association and active member, Ms. McKinstry has led bi-annual alumni reunions that advocate to maintain social networks, school history, and traditions. Although the original schoolhouse was destroyed in a fire, the Hopewell Alumni Association has worked to establish the history of Hopewell in the school building that replaced Hopewell – Reform Elementary School. Ms. McKinstry has led efforts to name the school’s gymnasium for a distinguished principal and is working on developing a permanent exhibition for the school. The Network has also established a website to connect alumni across the country. As an alumnus of Hopewell Rosenwald School, Ms. McKinstry has been committed to keeping the spirit and history of Black education alive through the ties of the children who attended elementary and high school at Hopewell between 1922-1973.