Pan African Studies Encyclopedia

By Kaliyah Pour-khorshid (Vernon)  

As I come to the close of my final semester of my undergraduate degree as a double major in Ethnic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies I come to a deeper understanding of intersectionality. Throughout my K-12 education I have noticed the overrepresentation of male figures as the main leaders in social movements across cultures. For instance, Cesar Chavez, Paulo Friere, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In no way am I discounting their leadership and the sacrifices that they have made to make our world a better place through their activism but I do offer an intersectional analysis to invite folks to think about the ways that folks of various genders and sexualities have also contributed to the same movements that these straight cis-gendered men have taken part in. Examples of activists with various marginalized identities include Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and Urvashi Vaid. These folks have inspired me to think of a person that is a Queer Black woman who embodies abolition and activism in their work which is why I chose Bettina Love. 

New York is where love was born.   In 2001, Love graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies.  She graduated with a Master of Education in elementary education from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002.  Georgia State University gave her a doctorate in educational policy studies in 2008.

Dr. Love was instrumental in forming the “In Her Hands” initiative’s task committee, which awarded over $13 million in grants to Black women in Georgia.  Speaking engagements have included abolitionist pedagogy, anti-racism, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, LGBTQ youth, educational reparations, and the power of art education to encourage young people to become engaged citizens.   NPR, PBS, Time, Education Week, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Education Week have all covered her opinions.

In 2018, the Georgia House of Representatives presented Dr. Love with a resolution in recognition of her significant contributions to education.   “We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom” or “Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal” are both New York Times best-sellers.   Additionally, she created the “GET FREE” Hip Hop civics curriculum.   In 2020, she co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN), an organization that educates individuals and families on how to oppose injustice in the classroom and beyond. 

She is a public academic who frequently contributes to Education Week Opinion on racial inequity in American classrooms.  She reinforced her status as a key figure in education today with the release of her book We Want To Do More Than Survive, which sold approximately 200,000 copies and is still widely utilized in classrooms across the country. 

Works Cited

Patzer, Lisa Marie. “Abolitionist Teaching and Learning with Bettina L. Love.” SNF Paideia Program at the University of Pennsylvania, 24 Nov. 2021, snfpaideia.upenn.edu/abolitionist-teaching-and-learning-with-bettina-l-love/.