Lessons in Radical Protection: How Black Mothers School Their Daughters through National Crises

Black mothers in the United States have navigated disparaging portrayals and systems that often emphasize perceived deficits, with existing research frequently overlooking their role as vigorous advocates for their children’s education. This study combines scholarly self-narrative and a critical race feminist phenomenological inquiry to explore how Black mothers’ educational parenting strategies affirmed their daughters both during and beyond the coronavirus pandemic. By analyzing ten semi-structured phenomenological interviews—supplemented by memoing and participant artifacts—I uncovered Black mothers’ ethos of radical protection, which fostered their daughters’ resilience and educative success. Key themes in this study include school advocacy, love expressed through sacrifice, and the preservation of cultural and racial identities. The findings highlight Black mothers’ collective imagination, envisioning a humanizing educational landscape that collaborates with families to dismantle African American girls’ systematic subjugation. Amidst intense political turbulence and anti-Black, anti-woman rhetoric, this research offers theoretically grounded imperatives to help teachers meet diverse learners’ needs in these precarious sociopolitical times.