Abstract
In Southwest Atlanta, urban education reform and gentrification have intersected to create the perfect collision of housing and educational displacement of Black students, Black families, and Black teachers. While Black communities are dealing with the impacts of gentrification, Black schools are simultaneously witnessing shifts that uproot students and their teachers. As a teacher participatory action research (PAR) collective, we share our personal experiences of housing displacement and how it has impacted our students, our communities, and our ability to maintain our positions as community-centered teachers. In this article, we acclimate readers to Atlanta, Georgia, and the Southwest Atlanta region in which we serve. We also illustrate how we have confronted the displacement of our students and ourselves. Finally, we highlight the significance of community-centered teachers operating within a Critical Studyin’ for Human Freedom praxis in the struggle against systemic inequities that persistently plague our students and communities.
Highlights
In Southwest Atlanta, urban education reform and gentrification have intersected to create the perfect collision of housing and educational displacement of Black students, Black families, and Black teachers
While we know that gentrification and urban education reform are not exclusive to Atlanta, Georgia, the city serves as a scheme for public school districts and neighborhoods with similar demographics
We offer the story of Black and social justice teachers in urban education, and we intend for our paper to spark discussions about the role of educators, impactful community engagement and, preparing teachers for social action
Summary
In Southwest Atlanta, urban education reform and gentrification have intersected to create the perfect collision of housing and educational displacement of Black students, Black families, and Black teachers. We attempt to show how urban education reform and gentrification are intricately connected, spun into one thread, and deceptively woven throughout the fabric of the city This fabric is a Whiter, more affluent one where new residents quickly displace Black students, Black families, and Black teachers in neighborhoods and schools. The first housing project in the United States was Techwood Housing projects originally constructed for White working-class residents (Holliman, 2008) and later, in the 1990s, again cleared of Black and poor residents for the HOPE VI project in preparation of the 1996 Centennial Olympics (Vale, 2013) When these two factors collide—education and housing—you have a model that is rife with inequities aimed directly at Black students, Black teachers, and Black communities
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