Crusaders for social justice: Black female educator-activists in social welfare reform in Los Angeles during the golden age of the Black Power movement, 1966--1975

This study examines the political lives of black women educators in Los Angeles, California during the golden age of the black power movement (1966-1975). Specifically, this study will focus on black female educators' involvement in the various social and political reform movements that surfaced during this tumultuous decade in American history. The findings will locate black female educator-activists' support for the political agendas set forth by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons and the Black Panther Party from 1966 to 1975.;During the 1960s and 1970s, the NAACP promoted integration policies while the BPP advocated black empowerment. This study will investigate how black women educators used their public influence to support or hinder the implementation of these two political programs. The evidence will show that black women educators renegotiated the patriarchal discourse of the civil rights and black power movements to maintain their public roles as race leaders. Both groups of respondents worked for race uplift, but they disagreed on how to achieve this objective. Gentile liberal teachers and radical iconoclastic teachers championed two distinct political ideologies.;African American women historically stood at the forefront of the struggle for racial equality, but conservative male leaders in both race uplift movements tried to relegate women to a secondary role in political affairs in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite formative resistance, black female educator-activists became members and leaders of the NAACP and the BPP. African American women teachers dabbled in gender politics, class politics, antiwar politics, and political party politics, but their involvement in non-black organizations was peripheral at best. While the, tended to avoid participation in these predominantly white political organizations, African American women teachers in this sample became very active in the labor union movement. This study will consider their peripheral involvement in these organizational movements but ultimately will show that black women educator-activists focused their activism foremost on the politics of race.