For decades, the voice of Black Americans has been systematically silenced: from the beginning, when African ancestors were ripped away from their home shores of Senegambia and West-Central Africa, through the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, to current civil unrest after America witnessed the murder of George Floyd. The Black Lives Matter movement's rise is a direct result of Black people who are sick and tired of being silenced. The purpose of this chapter is to describe four personalities—mediator, advocator, agitator, and activator—, the situations in which each would be appropriate, and the lessons learned through these experiences. This chapter will cover a brief personal narrative of the author growing up and taught to be seen and not heard and how the sheer notion of silence is golden is no longer appropriate in times of social unrest and when lives are at risk. The author highlights the cognitive dissonance felt as a school board member amid the new social justice movement of the late 2000s.
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In 1619, more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in Virginia, and since that time, slavery has impacted every facet of the cultures and traditions found within the United States of America (Jones, 2019-present). For centuries, the voices of Black people have been systematically silenced or erased from United States history. However, it is imperative for Black people to collectively use their voices to hold America accountable for its promises. Otherwise, silence becomes an instrument of violence (Kinouani, 2020). Silence serves as a tool to strip away the voices and remove from recognition the humanity of cultural groups being pushed to the margins by the power dominant cultural groups.
Silence suggests the old African Proverb that reads, “until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter,” has merit. Every moment offers the power to create a narrative that dictates not the accurate representation of events but the perceptions people hold about what happened (Trouillot, 1995). This use of perceptions over facts occurred as early as the beginning of America’s founding when Christopher Columbus was said to have “discovered” a land that was currently inhabited by indigenous people living on an island, an island we now know was the United States territory of Puerto Rico (Trouillot, 1995). The resulting representation of Columbus’s discovery silenced the voices and the lived experiences of the indigenous inhabitants of North America and the Caribbean Islands.
Regardless, Black people continue fighting for the human right to have their experiences shared, understood, valued, and reflected in social justice policy and practice. This ongoing fight is evidenced by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to the current civil unrest after America witnessed the murder of George Floyd. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement is a direct result of Black people reclaiming their voice and the right to matter on American soil.
In my personal experience as an educational leader, I have often been in spaces where my voice is the only one that speaks up for the students and families not represented at the table. Ironically, I grew up being taught that it is appropriate to be seen and not heard, but the notion that silence is golden no longer sits well with my soul. I asked myself, who am I in this space? Am I a mediator, an advocator, an agitator, or an activator? I struggled as I came to terms with these multiple personalities and the cognitive dissonance I experience as a school board member, leader, and parent. Amid this new social justice movement, I began the process of finding my voice. I recognized “the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak” (King, 1957). In this recognition, four roles emerged as necessary for promoting change as a leader. These roles were mediator, advocator, agitator, and activator.