‘We bring in each other's wisdom’: liberatory praxis and political education for Black lives in Philadelphia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Education is a central aspect of social movements' ability to build individual and collective participation in political struggle. But, how do these processes of learning and consciousness take place? As Choudry (Choudry, A. 2015. Learning Activism: The intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements. University of Toronto Press) argues, it is important to examine the intellectual life of contemporary social movements, their various forms and pedagogies of learning and knowledge production. In this article, we examine the role of ‘political education' in the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) global network. Rather than create educational spaces separate from the movement itself, BLM Philadelphia organisers approach political education as deeply embedded within a radical organising culture that focuses on integrating abolitionist principles within movement activities. Through in-depth interviews with BLM organisers, we find that practices of political education are built into the fibre of organising where activists ‘bring in each other's wisdom', cultivating a radical and organic culture of community support and intergenerational knowledge-making. We hope these findings contribute to a more expansive understanding of ‘political education' within Black social movements, building on Choudry’s call to centre the knowledge production and intellectual biography of contemporary social movements.