Abstract
Toni Morrison's Beloved challenges Western sensibilities about love, kinship, sacrifice, and spirituality. A Black teacher's dissertation study about revolutionary love (RL) for her Advanced Placement Literature students inspired this chapter. In it, the authors discuss two Black women teachers' kinship relationship and love for literature as revolutionary. Their collaborative autoethnographic account explores the influence of RL on mitigating the impact of intersectional oppression on our lived experiences. Moreover, the chapter illuminates the endarkened feminist underpinnings of their personal and spiritual connections: first, within a high school English classroom and now as colleagues and co-researchers. The chapter provides teaching strategies to guide spirit-led teachers in embodying RL for their students. It concludes with a call-and-response benediction for spirit-led teachers and their students.
TopIntroduction
“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all” (Morrison, 2007, p. 194).
Toni Morrison remains the only Black woman Nobel Prize for Literature recipient. Her seminal novel, Beloved (1987/2007), challenged Western sensibilities about love, kinship, sacrifice, and spirituality. Renowned Morrison scholar Valeria Smith argued that Beloved (1987/2007) “addresses the impact of the Middle Passage, enslavement and Reconstruction upon African American bodies, and psychological, emotional, and spiritual lives (2012, p. 62). For Smith, Morrison also interrogates “...the central role of the repressed memory of racial violence and its consequences within the broader story of American democracy” (2012, p. 62). Aptly, Morrison dedicated Beloved (1987/2007) to the sixty million and more kidnapped, killed, and enslaved Africans who endured the Maafa–the African Holocaust. Furthermore, the novel’s title was derived from the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the Church in Rome: “...I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one” (Romans 9:25, NIV). Consequently, Beloved (1987/2007) serves as an excellent reminder that what man rejects, God calls blessed.
Through the novel’s protagonist, Sethe, Morrison pays homage to the historical figure Margaret Garner. Garner, often called the modern Madea, was an enslaved Black woman who escaped from Kentucky to Ohio in 1956. On one of the coldest nights in Kentucky history, the pregnant Margaret fled across the frozen Ohio River with her husband, Robert, and their four children. The Garner’s escape attempt was thwarted when slavecatchers and local authorities surrounded the house of Elijah Kite, Margaret’s free cousin. Facing an inevitable return to a lifetime of bondage, Garner chose infanticide as a revolutionary act of maternal love. She murdered the youngest child, Mary, with a slit to the throat. With blows to the head, Margaret also intended to kill the other children. Morrison’s Beloved (1987/2007) offers a fictional aftermath account. In Beloved (1987/2007), Sethe suffers a different fate than her historical counterpart. Unlike Margaret, Sethe is not forced back into a life of enslavement. Instead, Sethe remains physically free in Ohio, while her soul remains in bondage to the haint of her murdered baby girl.
Beloved (Morrison, 1987/2007) serves as the framework for this chapter, which was inspired by a current dissertation study on the Revolutionary Love (RL) between a Black teacher and her Advanced Placement Literature students (Dunlap, 2023b). Dunlap (2023b) defined Revolutionary Love as (1) holding Black students (and ourselves) accountable, (2) holding space for Black students, (3) helping Black students heal, and (4) helping Black students escape. This book chapter features a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) between the study’s principal investigator and one of the study’s three co-researchers. Through CAE, we explore our reflections on reading Beloved (1987/2007) together more than 10 years ago as teacher and student and ruminate over Morrison’s continued influence on our spiritual formation as Black women educators. In a typical autoethnographic fashion, a review of the relevant literature will be woven throughout the narrative.
TopBackground
Historically, Black Americans have struggled for equality in education. In particular, African American students fought for their right to an education and to learn on equal footing with White students. We must note that we use the terms Black American and African American here because although not all Black Americans are African Americans, they have all been subjected to anti-Black racism and oppression in American schools.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE): EFE refers to womanist research focusing on Black women's connection with spirituality and covenant relationships with ancestors to teach and protect Black children. Dr. Cynthia Dillard (2000) is the Mother of EFE.
Spirituality: Black women’s spirituality stems from believing in the divine–something higher and greater than ourselves. For Black women educators, that same divine essence resides within our students.
Kinship: Kinship refers to the familial bonds established among African Americans, regardless of lineage. The African American kinship system arose from the desire to embody humanity and love amidst the inhumanity of slavery.
Call-and-Response: In the Black church, call-and-response is a conversational affirmation between a hymn leader and the congregation. In this way, call-and-response encourages solidarity and unity.
Beloved: Referring to something or someone as beloved implies admiration or adoration.
Revolutionary Love (RL): Dunlap (2023b) , RL refers to Black teachers' ability to inspire the next generation of Black leaders and teachers by centering affective, spiritual kinships with their Black students.
Benediction: Benedictions invoke blessedness, typically concluding spiritual services in the Black church.
Griot: In West African tradition, griots are storytellers and keepers of oral tradition.
Epistle: Epistles, or letters, may refer to New Testament letters penned by the Apostles.
Maafa: Maafa is the Kiswahili term for disaster, calamity, or terrible occurrence. Maafa descriptively refers to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Some Black academics and historians use the terms Maafa and Black Holocaust interchangeably.