“It’s How You’re Delivering These Messages”: An Examination of Black Women Early Childhood Educators’ Liberatory Practices Through Poetic Inquiry

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the course of 18 months, I found myself on a journey that began with two research questions based on my wonderings and observations about the lives of the women I witnessed engaging with young Black children in ways that the academic literature had not expounded upon. In this article, I use poetic inquiry to elucidate the liberatory practices of five Black women early childhood educators in a southwestern state. Rooted in Black feminist thought and ars spirituality, I analyzed my co-researchers’ narrative portraits to craft found poems that explored the connection between their embodiment of reciprocal authenticity and liberatory practices that further developed young Black children’s critical consciousness. As a means of (re)claiming my responsibility as a scholar and teacher educator, I provide the reader with poetic offerings that speak to the intergenerational freedom dreams of these Black women educators.