E7: We Had Black Teachers Until Jim Crow Fired Them

Feb 8, 2023 4:21:00 PM


Did you know that 100,000 Black educators were forced out of schools between the 1950s and the 1970s? Leslie Fenwick, dean emerita of Howard University's School of Education and author of Jim Crow's Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership, recounts the forgotten history of those highly-qualified, dedicated Black teachers and principals.

Leslie Fenwick

Leslie T. Fenwick, PhD, is Dean Emerita of the School of Education and a professor of Education Policy at Howard University in Washington, DC. She also holds an appointment as Dean in Residence at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).A former Visiting Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, she has worked in every sector of American education—as a preK–12 schoolteacher and administrator in urban public and private schools; university faculty member and administrator; foundation program officer; nonprofit board member; and legislative aid in the State of Ohio Senate. In 2020, she was a candidate for US Secretary of Education. Her widely disseminated research and opinion-editorials about education equity, leadership, and workforce diversity have appeared and been cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Education Week. She has been an invited speaker at the National Press Club and has appeared on CNN and C-SPAN discussing education equity and workforce development.

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