Abstract
ACTS of Liberation is a freedom framework for any educator grappling with mitigating the mental, emotional, social, and spiritual stress (MESS) of higher education. It is a systematic practice developed over a 14-year career in education as a student, teacher, and teacher educator. ACTS is an acronym with roots in African American legacy of liberation through activism, contemplative practice, truth-telling, and soulfulness. Written in the genre of Black Women memoir, this chapter is a transformative narrative about the author's experience as a Black woman matriculating through three stages of higher learning, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral studies. At each stage, there is an issue (MESS) in the academy, a creative resolution, and application of the ACTS framework.
TopIntroduction
ACTS of Liberation is a framework for educators grappling with mitigating and dismantling systemic racism and white supremacy in higher education. Mental, emotional, and spiritual stress (MESS) is what I experienced as a Black womanist pursuing multiple degrees at historically white institutions. ACTS of Liberation is a systematic practice I developed over fourteen years as a student, teacher, and teacher educator. ACTS is an acronym that stands for the strategies of Activism, Contemplative Practices, Truth-Telling, and Soulfulness rooted in an African American legacy of liberation. At the heart of my framework of practices is my story of healing soul wounds I incur on a journey of mitigating systemic racism and white supremacy in academia. This reflective chapter is written in the genre of Black women's memoirs. Women such as Dr. Maya Angelou, bell hooks, and Audrey Lorde tell the “beautiful, ugly and healing” truths (Bell-Scott & Johnson-Bailey, 1999) of what it means to exist at the intersection of Blackness and womanness. My “beautiful, ugly, and healing” truths will offer wisdom to some and encouragement to others. Most of all, telling my story offers freedom to me, a descendent of Afro-indigenous people enslaved in the United States.
In this chapter, I reflect on my college career as I highlight how I transformed from a K-12 substitute teacher into a doctoral student on my way to becoming an academic researcher. The purpose of this narrative is to share my story of trial and error, as I struggle for liberation in education. I also share my story to honor my ancestors who came before me. My ancestors designed a blueprint to fight for freedom and heal in the face of adversity. I invite you to join my healing journey at three stages of my academic career: undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral studies. At each stage, I share personal and professional problems (the MESS) in higher education, strategies for resolution (ACTS of Liberation: My Freedom Framework), and offer my application of the framework. I invite you to take what resonates and leave the rest: You can always return when you need to be encouraged.
I am a Black womanist who self-identifies as a hetero-queer, writer, daughter, friend, and educational activist. I am also a doctoral student and becoming an academic researcher passionate about transforming systems of oppression in teacher education. I am a deeply spiritual being. I have not always walked a path of boldness or been clear about my calling to lead and teach. I remember my brokenness, my unwillingness to see myself fully. Today, I stand ten toes down in my work with intentionality, determination, and integration of mind, body, and soul. Freedom for me comes at a high cost of sacrificing time, energy, and old ways of knowing and being in this world. Freedom comes at a high cost of studying myself, my mentors, and my environment. In an interview, Nina Simone was once asked what freedom meant to her. She replied, “Freedom to me is no fear” (Rodis, 1968). Freedom to me is centering myself in my research and the voices of beautiful and bold Black women in my studies. bell hooks (1989) said,
The most important of our work-the work of liberation-demands of us that we make a new language, that we create the oppositional discourse, the liberatory voice. Fundamentally, the oppressed person who has moved from object to subject speaks to us in a new way. This speech, this liberatory voice, emerges only when the oppressed experience self-recovery. (p. 29)
Key Terms in this Chapter
ACTS of Liberation: An acronym for practices (activism, contemplative practices, truth-telling, and soulfulness) to foster inner and outer liberation, self, and systems change.
Healing: A process of recovering well-being from an illness, detriments, aliments, or suffering.
Activism: Actions that lead to positive change to benefit society, self, and systems.
Contemplative Practices: Everyday actions that result in a deeper level of connection, communion, or awareness with self, others, or an environment.
Truth-Telling: Is a way of being and speaking authentically despite how it will be perceived.
Mess: An acronym to describe a multidimensional issue that impacts mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being.
Soulfulness: Is a way of knowing and doing everyday activities based on the African American cultural lens.