In honor of Women’s History Month, the Sentinel spotlights Dr. Karida L. Brown. Her forthcoming book “The Battle for the Black Mind” is a powerful journey through the history of Black education, revealing the centuries-long struggle to control Black intellectual life in America and across the globe.
The NAACP award-winning sociologist is featured in the PBS documentary series “Great Migrations: A People On The Move” with Henry Louis Gates.
“When ‘Skip’ Gates calls, you answer!” Brown recalled. “And that answer is always going to be yes. His team invited me to participate in the documentary which I knew would be momentous.
“In 2018, I published my book, ‘Gone Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia,’ which traces the hidden history of the Great Migration and talks about Black folks who moved through the coal country of Appalachia. That book uses oral history to tell stories of the movers and shakers of the African American Migration. That’s how Dr. Gates found me, and as a ‘Blackademic,’ it’s one of the greatest honors of my career.”
In 2001, Brown relocated from Long Island, New York, to the Windsor Hills community of L.A. as a joint-appointee in African American Studies and Sociology at UCLA.
“Moving to L.A. was like immigrating to a different country,” she recalled. “It opened up a whole new world to me. I had just graduated with my Ph.D. from Brown University and UCLA was my first professor job. Imagine that! One of the top research universities in the country, if not the world.
“I didn’t know anybody,” she admitted, “but I knew I wanted to find out where the Black folks lived. I didn’t teach classes in my first semester. I focused on buying a home and living in a historically African American community. And that’s how I found my little house on Chesley and Slauson. That community was my life. It sustained me.”
Today, Brown is a leading scholar of systemic racism in Black life at the private research school Emory University in Atlanta and has authored a new book “The Battle For The Black Mind” which debuts on May 13.
“It is my calling to pursue this research out of the simple question, ‘What’s a colored school?’” she queried.
“What is that?! And if there’s such a thing as a colored school that means that whoever had that in mind, the architects of that system, had something different in mind for Black folks.
“This book looks at a system,” she examined, “that attempted to oppress and subjugate Black minds that were designed not for us, not by us, and not about us.
“And I investigated who came up with these systems. What was the network of power behind the separate and unequal system? What were their educational aims?
“But the part I love the most,” she added, “is I interrogate that despite all this, what did Black teachers and parents do? What did Black youth do to organize, dream, and imagine futures where they could see themselves? How did they use education as a vehicle for economic and social mobility? This book is a history, a road map, and a call to action because our education system is again under attack.
“I served as the inaugural director of Racial Equity & Action for the Los Angeles Lakers from 2020 to early 2023,” she noted.
“I brought my skills and expertise as an expert in systemic racism to ensure that the team continues to be a learning organization for all its employees on and off the court.
“My job was not to tell the Lakers what they needed to do, nor was it to try to save them. As an educator and public intellectual, my job was to empower every last person in that organization to be the change they want to see,” she concluded.
To learn more, visit https://www.karida.io/
