From Morning to Mourning: A Meditation on Possibility in Black Education

Abstract

This article insists on a reframe of mourning, away from a period of sadness or weeping alone, to a vision of its merits for discovering and unlocking possibility in Black Education. For example, mourning might be understood as involuntarily surrendered time necessary to properly grieve, concede, and embrace Black people’s subject position in the US sociopolitical context. Turning towards mourning, the dark moments that urge it and the dark(er) moments that it may produce, is argued as a launch pad to more fully understanding the depth and reach of Black people’s possibility. To make such an argument the author contemplates how mourning, and subsequent meditations on possibility, might have informed the activism of leaders in the Black radical tradition who urgently insisted that Black people’s human dignity be recognized and properly acknowledged. The article concludes with discussion of the significance of possibility to advance equity and excellence in education.