S12E9 – Staying Power with Danielle Wingfield

S12E9 - Staying Power with Danielle Wingfield

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Dr. Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is Staying Power with Dr. Danielle Wingfield.

Dr. Val: I fully believe Dr. Wingfield is going places.

Andrew: Absolutely. She is a historian, a lawyer, a law professor. And you know, we've, we've talked to historians in the past Val, and I don't know that I've ever come across someone who identifies as a historian, but who has such a clear focus on what history means to right now and to this moment that we find ourselves in.

Dr. Val: Everyone needs to know, and really appreciate the work of Dr. Wingfield. Making those really tight connections between history, present and actions that we can take so that we aren't overwhelmed by the idea that we haven't been here before.

Andrew: Yeah, she had a piece that came out recently called The Resurgence of Massive Resistance. We've talked about Massive Resistance in the past. You know, this period right after Brown V Board where a number of elected officials across the south said, we are not going to desegregate our schools.

And, one thing I really took from her piece was, uh, she drew this line from really going all the way back to, you know, the 1600’s when the first enslaved people arrived in this country. And the way we thought about education all the way through to today and sort of tying this thread, that Massive Resistance in, in its uh, sort of official form was just one piece of what has been a much larger, broader movement that we still see going on today.

Dr. Val: And there are characteristics that we see today, um, certainly curriculum control. A rise of parental rights, um, politicizing education, those are all things that were used in the past that are being used today as well.

Andrew: You know, it's easy to look at how the attacks on public education are showing up right now and feel a little overwhelmed and feel a little disheartened and, one thing I really appreciate about Dr. Wingfield is she's very clear about what ways have we overcome some of these things in the past so that we can help inform our choices about going forward?

Dr. Val: It's a conversation that piqued all of my interest when it comes to learning history and applying, and also made me feel hopeful that we can survive this and get to the other side because we know when there is progress, there's gonna be resistance. When we keep moving, there's gonna be more backlash. And we're just gonna keep pushing. We're just gonna keep pushing.

Andrew: Yes. We need, as the title of the episode says, Staying Power, and I think Dr. Wingfield gives us a good idea of why that's important and what things we can draw on, uh, to help us with that staying power. So…

Dr. Val: That's right.

Andrew: Excited for our listeners to check this out. Shall we take a listen to Dr. Wingfield?

Dr. Val: We should.

[THEME MUSIC]

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I am Dr. Danielle Wingfield. I am a legal historian and a law professor, and my work is situated right at the intersection of public education, civil rights, democracy and family. And so a lot of what I think and write about involve all of those things. And so it's very cool to be here with both of you on the Integrated Schools podcast. I think it's a perfect fit.

Andrew: It is. We are so glad that you are here. Why do you care? Like, how did you find yourself as, with this focus for your career? I mean, you've got a bachelor's from William and Mary, you've got a JD from the University of Richmond. You've got a PhD from the University of Virginia. You have like spent a lot of time and energy studying and learning and developing capacity. Why focus it on this intersection of families and civil rights and education?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: It’s so personal for me. So I was born in Prince Edward County, which is one of the birthplaces of Brown. That's where Barbara Johns, a student, sparked things there and got things going as one of the five plaintiffs on that case. My grandparents, one of whom is still alive, still lives in Prince Edward County.

Andrew: Wow.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And they were a part of what we call the lost generation, um, when the schools shut down completely rather than to integrate.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And so that's my birth story. I come out of the history, and then I moved to Lynchburg, Virginia where I was raised by my mother and my grandmother. There a different grandmother who was, um, a storyteller in her own right and a historian. And I spent my formative years around people who are all over 60. So, um, I learned early, um, what rich insights can come from just being in the room of people who've been around for a while. So I guess it's just in my blood.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Um, I thought I would be a teacher. And I quickly learned after sitting in a classroom, as a high schooler, that that was not my calling. In fact, uh, and…

Dr. Val: Fair.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: But I have a heart for families and children, and so I decided, oh, my mom was right when she told me at 12 to leave it for the courtroom when I was giving my closing argument about why I should not be in trouble. Um, that I should advocate for children instead. So that's how I'd kind of take this journey to being a lawyer. And I practiced, I did so for children and their parents. That's who I represented. And I was, I had a really tough case and I realized that my arm wasn't long enough. I couldn't reach, uh, all of the people that I wanted to help. And so that's when I decided, to go to, to UVA and, and be a law teacher because I could extend my reach.

I teach constitutional law and legal history, but, um, there's so much that could help our legal institution and, some of our, inequalities that, um, at a systemic kind of scale just by knowing our history. So that's why I take the historical approach. It's, you know, it's in me, but also I think it's a powerful tool to understand the playbook and understand the stories of resilience.

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Mm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: As well as resistance so that we can know what to do and how to approach things.

Dr. Val: I've said this before, at this point in my life, I feel like we should all be required to be history majors of some kind.

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Val: Right?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Val: Even if you are an architect, you need to know the history of architecture in a deep and meaningful way in how it has shown up, you know in our country.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Andrew: You also have spent some time focusing on oral history, including the Teachers in the Movement project. Can you tell us a little bit about like why oral history, why storytelling, and that has been part of your work?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Why storytelling? Yeah. Thank you for that question. 'Cause it is a great, uh, moment to plug the Teachers in the Movement project. Uh, which I am the associate director and I've been doing some cool stuff with film, um, with the First Class Project, telling American first stories.

But the Teachers in the Movement project is a oral history where we've interviewed over 500, we may be up to 600 teachers by this point who worked during the long civil rights movement. So, uh, at some point between the sixties, um, through the eighties, and, we hear their stories of teaching, being the first to teach, to integrate schools as teachers and, um what their experiences were like. And whether they thought of themselves as activists or doing…

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …any type of political work. And it's a fascinating project. My mentor, uh, leads that project, Dr. Derek Alridge. And storytelling is important, and that's because none of this is new.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: We've been here before. And so I think it's important to be reminded of that, from lived experience. And that can slow us down in moments of panic and help us consider what's really operating here, what's driving the fear? How should we respond? How have people responded before who were in our shoes? What, if anything, should we change or keep the same? It makes things real and relevant in a more personal way. And so I love sitting at the feet of elders for that reason, because there's so much to learn. And so I am a student, um, first and foremost, usually.

Andrew: Yeah. That's amazing.

Dr. Val: I'm super excited about this project.

Andrew: I came across your work through your recent article in the Washington and Lee Law Review, which full transparency is not something that I just like regularly read, but, um, Gina at NCSD recommended that I check it out.

Dr. Val: We know good people who know good people.

Andrew: That's right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You know people.

Andrew: Yeah. It's called The Resurgence of Massive Resistance. And it really looks at this sort of the historical context of a lot of the anti-public education sentiment that we see right now. I wonder if you can tell us some of the history, you know, massive resistance, sort of, you know, capital M, capital R coined in 1956 by Virginia Senator Harry Bird.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: We think of it as this kind of post Brown V Board thing, but as you point out in the piece, the ideology behind it stretches all the way back to kind of the founding of the country. Help us understand some of that, some of that history, the way that education was thought about, way back when, you know, the first enslaved people arrived in the country.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah. Oh, well, you set me up to talk a lot, Andrew, and I wanted to give the podcast short version of that. So, yeah, so, um, this, yeah, the Massive Resistance piece, was just me looking at just closely over years, what exactly happened after Brown versus Board of Education and, you know, literature. And certainly, I don't disagree, it just often hails Brown is like this, um, triumphant moment, you know, a very pivotal moment in our history. And, and it was, but I think what's talked less about is how coordinated and sophisticated and effective the backlash was that came after Brown.

Dr. Val: Absolutely.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: As a Virginian, and we call it the Virginia Way around here, I think it is especially effective and tricky to navigate because you know, in the deep, deep south it was so blatant, you know, it was violent, it was in your face, you could see it. And Virginia was a bit more ingrained in the politics, and baked in the system in a way that you couldn't see it as readily, which is especially difficult to counter.

And so that's where we get this center, Harry F. Bird, and this political machine that's developing this Massive Resistance strategy to block desegregation, and weaken public education altogether. And what I kind of chronicle as this long anti-public education movement. It wasn't just about keeping schools segregated, that there was a broader project I would suggest, about controlling knowledge and power.

And so we get this inflammatory public, uh, political rhetoric happening. We kinda see that now with anti CRT and like these buzzwords, right? We get this censorship of, um, I'm talking the history now, censorship of curriculum and textbooks. They're rewriting it in Virginia and Texas and all these places to tell a positive story of the Confederacy and the war and what was really happening. And that we see book bans today, right?

Um, and then, you know, this parental rights thing where choice, school choice and we should have the choice about where we go. It sounds good and that's right. But also that was a tool. That piece just kind of goes through those strategies across time to see how they haven't disappeared necessarily, but they've just evolved.

Andrew: Bbecause it's not new, right? It comes under different language or through different organizations. You know, you've got the United Daughters of the Confederacy and now you have Moms for Liberty. But the ideology behind it is the same.

What I appreciate about the piece was, you talk a lot about trying to maintain the status quo. It's easy if you don't have historical context to look at the evolution of the push back, you know, that we've, we've seen in the past several years, Moms for Liberty and the like, as something new as trying to, you know, move us away from something. But really it's always been about holding onto the status quo. It's always been about, since education was originally, you know, happened in the country, it was never designed for Black people. It was in fact illegal for Black people to be educated. And so there has been this desire to hold onto, you use, use the term resistance a lot in your piece. And you know, in this current moment I'm thinking about the resistance to the current administration. And then they're like, wait, wait, actually you're, what you're talking about is resistance to change, resistance to evolving an education system towards equity, resistance to moving away from this status quo that is really designed to kind of maintain racial hierarchy.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah, exactly. And then like, and then what do we learn from it? Right. You know, if we understand that it's cyclical, then we are aware of what's happening and we won't take the bait, and we can respond appropriately. We can avoid treating this current moment as some type of unprecedented crisis and then, like really dig into the struggle that's happening over democracy or, you know, maybe we'll get like a little lead on the fact that how important education and children are to maintaining the status quo.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And, and also how brilliant and amazing we must be for the war to be right there. Uh, you know, like…

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …Something is pressing at the level of education, that is causing all of this is a big deal. And then, you know, listen, my, my mentee Henry Marsh, was a big, I'm like, why were you working within the law? You know, why you didn't try to just burn it all down? He is like, I'm a lawyer. I believed in the law. You know…

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …like I’m gonna do everything within my power to change the law from within the system. So I'm like, okay. But a lot of my work lately has been like, okay, what can we understand about the law's limits and how we overcome those limits, you know? And so, um, I've been trying to figure out how to navigate it all. You know, like, maybe my daughter will change the system, but right now I'm stuck with it. So like, how can I help my clients and my community and the people that I care about navigate it?

Dr. Val: You mentioned the importance of having the stories of resilience, of strategy when things get tough. Do you have any stories right now that you feel are important to share with us?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Ooh. Oh yeah. Well, I wrote my dissertation on Henry Marsh, who was the first Black mayor of Richmond, Virginia, the…

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: … formal Capital of the Confederacy. He was a state senator at one point, and I found myself clerking for him, thinking that I would do something law related, and instead he decided he wanted me to help him write his memoirs.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And that really, Andrew, to answer, I guess part of your previous question is when I realized the power of history and the law. You know, I knew about history…

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …in other fields and teaching and education and just family and the Grio and you know, like the power of passing along information from one generation to the next. But boy, was it powerful to hear firsthand how he and Oliver Hill, who were in the direct lineage of folks, you know, like Thurgood Marshall and others, were running the streets of Virginia, into these courtrooms. And fighting just with one or two men law firms, these big school districts and these big corporations who had tons of resources trying to desegregate schools.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: It was just fascinating. And so, he comes to mind at this moment. He's just passed away this previous year, and I used to ask him like, what do we do? What, what's your biggest lesson from all of this? And he would say, staying power.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I won, he had one case that lasted 20, over 20 years. He only won, because there was a substitute judge. Uh, and the substitute judge granted this battle he had been fighting for many many many years.

Andrew: For 20 years.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: 20 years!

Andrew: Wow.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And um, and he said, you have to outlast the opposition. You just gotta out, you have to figure out how to outlast them. You gotta stay in, you gotta stay in there. Um, and you can't be deterred by, their, you know, resources, the power that's behind them, how many wins they've had, how many losses you've had. You just, you run the course, you fight the fight. Um, and he did so up until he went from this earth. And so I, I, that lesson is sticking with me.

I think I might title that book Staying Power or something. But, it's just a story of, of, of not only being resilient, but figuring out how to care for yourself and your communities long enough to continue. And so I think that's a powerful story, and I think that's a story you get from not only Henry Marsh, but James Apostle Fields who overcame all the odds to then, to have a law school himself and teach other students how to read the law. Right? He was owned as property and then he died with 25 properties, right? Like there you can…

Andrew: Wow.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …You can turn it around. And then, I’ve been writing, most recently about, I've been thinking about Homeplace, bell hooks’ Homeplace or these places where all people, especially Black people, can, um, be safe and free to resist, to be human. And I've been trying to capture that in the law. And so this last piece were histories of homeplace, that is these Black wall streets, these Black urban districts and incorporated towns like Jackson Ward, right in Richmond, Virginia, or Greenwood in Tulsa. We know that one. That's a familiar one. We remember them often for the destruction and the violence that happened at the end. But they were bustling, they were thriving.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: They were successful. There were the Maggie Walkers in Richmond, Virginia who were owning banks. And there was so much wealth and positive things. So many stories of when you, you know, can't rely on the law or when you can't rely on other people to protect or guarantee your safety, how can we do that for each other and ourselves?

Dr. Val: We have to be reminded yes, that our, our, our communities are alive and well. And, and it's not only in, how they end or the struggles that they have. That shouldn't be the only story that we tell. Like we should tell the stories of how they are thriving. And so my question to you, what are some of these elements of thriving that you've seen in communities that, you know, people can either acknowledge or recognize in their own spaces or, or look for as they create communities for resilience.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Ooh, it's interesting. They, they're all, they aren't all the same, right? And so it just varies based on the geographic location, whether they're trying to navigate the rural, the south, what part of the country is it urban, you know. But I, I think some, and I haven't fully synthesized all this 'cause I haven't wrote the conclusion. I'm just like, I have raw data in my brain. And so we are doing this in real time.

Andrew: Let's do it.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I, I think some elements that might go across all of these places, you know, um, they're certainly rooted in community, right? You see an investment in shared responsibility.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: So, you see schools run by the community for the community, right? You see teachers as neighbors and, and, and not just, you know, teaching content and curricula, but really, you know, focused on the whole student. You see mutual aid networks, right, where the burden isn't falling on one group or one person, but where they're, trying to like, equally distribute care and, and, um, you see kinship, you see kinship outside of bloodline.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Which is I think a very, um, deep and fascinating thing that I wanna look, um, into.

Dr. Val: Mmmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You see value setting, which they didn't all agree upon necessarily, but you certainly see kind of the charter of the agreed upon core values being reflected in the schools and in the churches and in the newspaper, like the, the institutions that were built in these communities.

They were adaptive. Um, in some of the communities, they did rely on land trust and they weren't living completely outside of the government necessarily. And so they did have to navigate laws that weren't necessarily built or made for them, but, um, they figured out leverage, you know, what to leverage and how to adapt. There wasn't any lacking of belonging or trust, which is a part of that home place that, that bell hooks and I talk about.

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Val: It sounds like a beautiful place.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I mean, it sounds lovely. The banks are, banks are banking. They have these best schools for teachers where they're learning Latin and these languages. And they, you know, have a classical instruction. And they're, they are brilliant and business savvy, and it's just not the narrative or the picture we, we often think about, for this time period. But…

Dr. Val: Mmmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …um, at one point, there were a lot of, it was a lot of good positive movement happening in these communities.

Dr. Val: Yeah. Of course, they were thriving because why else destroy them?

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: There you go. That's the whole paper. [everyone laughing]

Dr. Val: Why, of course, that's, that's why you destroy them. Even in communities that are underserved because they are seen as throwaway communities, you also have the permission to destroy them. Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Val: Like, you know, how do we…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Dr. Val: How do we win?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: How do we win? How do we win? I mean, you know, to our original, original, original point, knowing that knowing the history could be so powerful. I mean, I have a 9-year-old, but um, even the generation ahead of her, they don't know Maggie Walker or Oliver Hill or Thurgood Marshall, or like the infrastructure that was possible to be built at a time when it, you know, wasn't necessarily allowed or convenient or…

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: … easy, um, I don't know. It's instructive in some ways, right?

Dr. Val: Yep.

Andrew: And it was, it was risky. It's one of the things I think about a lot nowadays is like, where are people willing to be uncomfortable? Where are people willing to actually risk things? What are people willing to actually put on the line?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Andrew: You know, I think about the, those, those leaders from that era and the risks, they were willing to take the, you know, expectation of being arrested, of being beaten, of you know, houses being firebombed. These things just sort of came along with it and people went along with it because they believed in the greater cause. And I, I worry sometimes that we've lost sight of that a bit, and that there is this kind of focus on comfort and like where are people willing to actually risk things nowadays? I don't know.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Seriously. Yeah. The courage and the risk involved.

Dr. Val: And…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: We gotta get our weight back up.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: That was a great way to put that. [laughing]

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: That was a great way to put that.

Andrew: Hit the gym.

Dr. Val: We have seen recently, communities demonstrating courage, coming together, recognizing the danger that's involved, and still trying to, stand up for themselves and their community members. How can those folks use the law to help them in their efforts to, to fight for their rights and fight for the rights of their community members?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Particularly in this moment where it feels like the, certainly at the federal level and in many state levels, the structures of government are working counter to so many of those things.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah, I'm very fortunate and both, very tired by everything I write about having such a relevant hook these days.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Um, but it does make me think about, The Resurgence of Massive Resistance.

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And there's, in that piece I was thinking about Harry F. Bird from Virginia who coined this phrase, that's where we get the Massive Resistance phrase, where he had this very coordinated effort to resist Brown vs Board of Education. And it's similar in that we see a history where communities recognize the danger in that moment of still trying to enroll in these schools and the guards having to come in to protect these students, these children, and um all the things that gets just a dangerous place. And they still were, you know, showing up and making risky choices. Right. Um. And your question is like, so like what do we do? How do we mitigate the risk? Is there anything we can do with the law? And part of what I am like thinking about in navigating this terrain is understanding the playbook. If we're looking at schools, for example, Massive Resistance. We see political rhetoric happening. You see that now, we see a parentals right type of fear-based rally. And parents of course are important, but all parents' voices are important. Like how do we get everyone in the room being heard?

We see a very pernicious, working around through school privatization, you know, but yet we're still seeing, you know, parents even today show up at school board meetings. There are pockets across the country where parents who would try to advocate for their children being in the right classes, or getting the correct IEPs, or et cetera, et cetera, and the school would call Child Protective Services on that family and file a complaint, because they were annoyed by their advocacy.

Dr. Val: Oh.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And there's one particular family that I write about that they take the child away for, I think it was, uh, six or seven weeks. Like removed from the home. Yes. To investigate. And of course they found no neglect, no abuse, just a parent who was trying to make the risky… Speaking of risk, you know, the amount of risk involved just for advocating for your child to be in the right class. What do we do? I mean, we just, we do it. We, we understand the playbook, we understand what's happening…

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …And then we consider, what the risk is and whether, and whether it's the right move to make at that time and whether there's another move. But I don't know, courts are one place. Um, but our voices can be heard and we can defend democracy in all types of places.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And so I think we have to explore all the tools.

Andrew: The Supreme Court is not coming to save us.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah, I think we should, we might wanna pivot from that. [laughing]

Andrew: Yeah,

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: State courts might. You know? And state constitutions.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And I don't think we abandon the law.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: But I’m certainly in a place right now where we need to, um, consider how we might take matters in, into our own hands of what we have.

Dr. Val: I'm super fascinated, um, by what you described as like, being reared by people over 60 in your formative years. And also because we know this is cyclical. How are we learning lessons, right? And then teaching them. And I brought up your community that raised you as…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Val: …like you said, that was part of the regular conversation. I am sure that you were having those conversations in whichever way feels right for you and your daughter, like you're having them right?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Hmm.

Dr. Val: They're not, they're not news to her. But how do we as a community learn so that when we see this cycle come up again, we are also smarter…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Val: …the next go round. Right.

Andrew: The reason that you're turning to that is because it's so important and it's because it's so important, it's the reason that it is being fought so hard. Right. The reason that we have book bans, I mean, literally just today as I was like getting ready to jump on here, there was a, you know, push notification about the University of Texas, eliminating gender studies. The ways that we are trying to, you know, alter curriculum is…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm.

Andrew: …is because it is so powerful. I think about Val, about your, the, the stick of knowledge in your, in your house.

Dr. Val: Yes!

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Tell me about that!

Dr. Val: My dad, he printed out all of these pictures of Black leaders, intellectuals, scientists, writers, artists, et cetera. And he would paste them all on the stick. And we have the stick of knowledge. And like he would point, and I needed to know everybody on that stick of knowledge all the time. But like our home African American Studies course was AP level, right? And that has helped me recognize these patterns, that has helped me understand…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Val: …the need to be able to persevere, right to outlast. But I don't know that that is like a community square.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Dr. Val: I don't know that it's happening in the same way. And, honestly, while you were thinking, I was like, okay, I need to start an afterschool program.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I mean, exactly.

Dr. Val: I was trying to figure out what I needed to know. I was like, okay… I have my calling, I have my…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …is a good after school, right? Um, then you can pass down that knowledge from your stick of knowledge. This podcast is another amazing tool. I mean, it's like how do we make these histories visible and collective, right? Um, and that's what you all are doing. That's why this is such powerful work that you all are doing, like right on the ground and why I've started, you know, thinking about film and putting these histories in a more easily obtainable kind of form so that we can keep it going.

Like we have to figure out how to not just write the law review article, right? But, get it in a form and in a place and in a forum where, we can just come in a room and really strategize and think about, and commune around, um, what we need to do, what we need to learn, what we have to remember, and what we need to do to move forward in this moment.

Andrew: A lot of work to do.

Dr. Val: And, but…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: So much work to do.

Dr. Val: … it doesn’t feel outside of my responsibility. Our responsibility.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah. That's good.

Dr. Val: It feels within my responsibility.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Andrew: That's in your contract.

Dr. Val: That's right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Dr. Val: We had a conversation, um, with Dr. Loretta Ross.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mmmmm.

Dr. Val: And one thing that she talks about is like, not letting go of your link in the chain. I think, you know, what you have described feels like, okay, I don't, I can't do it all. There was a time where I could.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Mm. Mm-hmm. Me too.

Dr. Val: I was like, I could, I can do this all.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You can do all of it.

Dr. Val: Yeah. Um, and now I recognize that I can’t.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Dr. Val: But I certainly can make sure that I'm holding onto that link in the chain.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You are exactly right. Like the story I was telling with the homeplace, right, is a story of safety. Why they had to create them in the first place. Sovereignty, like how they govern themselves, and then sabotage, which eventually happened through the state. And at the end I'm thinking, well how do we get over the sabotage part because you hit it Val.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And you're like, well, that's why they were targeted was because they were thriving and successful.

Dr. Val: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And so anyway, a part of the mini little mini solutions that I was thinking about was the one you just pointed out, which is like, what if it's even better if we don't solve all the problems ourselves? You know, what if…

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …our incorporated town or our Black Wall Street is us and four other families?

Dr. Val: Whew.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You know, like what if we took responsibility over our pod and then we just had micro pods of knowledge production? They could, I, you know…

Dr. Val: They can’t get us all! [everyone starts laughing]

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You see it… you see it!

Dr. Val: That’s it. That’s it!

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And you know, we're reproducing and telling these histories and we are, you know, tilling and taking care of our land and we're buying the land and we're, you know, making our money circulate. And so maybe it does make it a little less daunting and a little bit more at our fingertips if we are truly just kind of focused on what we can do and who we can touch. So good.

Andrew: I appreciated the piece for the historical context for like, the way you kind of tied the threads of that this is not something new. I do think acknowledging that this is part of a larger project makes it, you know, in some ways it's like a little depressing. It's like, oh, we, we've been doing this for 400 years. Damn.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: For a long time. [laughing]

Andrew: But, but on the other side, like Val said, it means like, all right, like what's, how do I hold up my link in the chain, the chain of freedom as Dr. Ross talks about. And what do we do? And I, you bring from the educational standpoint some areas to focus on. The truth, you know, teaching our kids actual truth, intellectual enlightenment as the pathway to liberty, which I love civics instruction. Which I think we have entirely abandoned, as a country. And then, and then movement lawyering and sort of the, the, the places where we can use the tools of the state, the, you know, working from the inside.

Not that there is not need for those people who are pushing to burn the whole thing down, but for, for the people on the inside, using the tools from the inside to kind of elevate the voices of those most impacted. Talk a little bit about those, the lessons you learned from looking at this history of massive resistance and how you think about turning those things forward from an education standpoint.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I think the history and truth is central to democracy is just a, a really big point in a, in a time and space of a lot of misinformation, which I think speaks to our entire conversation today. I don't think we can state enough how when curricula and when lessons are changed or misappropriated or mistaught or if it's misinformation, that that's not just messing up one child's mind, but that…

Andrew: Right,

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …uh, doing some, large scale altering that's happening there. And so, we don't wanna deny students access to honest accounts of American history. It's not Black. This is American history, you know, we can't build a democracy on silence and distortion. That's not going to endure, you know, in a way that we need it to. And so, um, I think that's important.

And then law as a tool, which we've talked about, um, but not alone. And so I do think it's a call to. Folks like me who are like movement lawyers who are taking their cues from the people, from communities, and then using the tools that we have to create systemic change. And also I'm adding onto that, you know, just our own ownership of, of our stories and movement as well. So we can defend democracy in all the places, not just courtrooms, but classrooms and libraries and school board meetings. And maybe it's, maybe it's you Andrew, who brought the lesson today. Like, we might need to be, be willing to take some risk.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Calculated ones. And the way to take the calculated risk, I think, is to understand, the context of it all…

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: … and then move accordingly.

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Yeah, I have this theory that I, that came to me as I, as I was reading your piece, I think, sort of around No Child Left Behind in the early 2000’s. We had this push towards, you know, schools mostly focusing on reading and math and moving away from, or certainly leaving less time for things like social studies and civics. The sell there was like, we're gonna focus on these foundational skills. And like, for sure, if you can't read, it's very hard to learn other things. And like, you know, knowing how to do math is important, but there's a way that it, it seems like it was almost like kicking the can down the road.

Like inevitably as we try to live together in an increasingly diverse and interconnected country, we're going to come up against these issues where there is disagreement. The other thing I really appreciate about your piece was that, that you, you're willing to sort of sit in, in the nuance, like parental rights is not a clear cut school choice is not a clear cut, good or evil. These are things that like, it's, it's reasonable to, to have some disagreements about and to try to find a way to come to some understanding about.

But we stopped doing that in the public sphere. You know, public education was a place where we had the opportunity to kind of have these conversations and have these arguments and try to work it out in small scale, in small communities. And I think that still happens in some places, in some schools, if you have a really good school leader, you know, maybe you're kind of trying to grapple with some of these civics oriented things that are going on.

But, , we've like put on horse blinders, you know, and so like, well, let's just like learn how to read and how to do math and all this other stuff, we'.. just sort of set to the side and that's like a, a need as we, as we see each other's humanity more. As we feel more and more interconnected and we see the inequities in the world, we have to have some way to understand it, to make sense out of it. And if we're not doing that together in these public spaces, then we're pushed further and further into our silos. We get more and more, you know, differing views about what the solutions might be about, what reasonable is, about what even happened in the past .

And I think in an ideal world you can have these conversations about multiracial democracy. You can have these conversations about these nuanced differences in, in terms of things that are valuable to people in the public sphere. And like, public education is a great place. We're not doing it in churches anymore. We don't really have like civic organizations anymore. But public schools are still a place where everybody comes together.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Andrew: Seems like it was like, uh, I don't know. That feels tricky and complicated and makes me uncomfortable. Let's just teach kids to read and do math and like, we'll, we'll worry about that some other way.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yes, I think that's exactly right. I, I like to tell my law students, I'm not here to push an agenda. Right. You know, I, I'm not here to make you see what I see or see it, how I see it, but I do want to point you in a direction and like, uh, arm you with some critical thinking skills.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: To be able to process and make sense of it for yourself. And so your theory is resonating with me, Andrew, about, um, the lack of critical thinking skills for all students. You know what I'm saying…

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: …beyond ideology, whatever, everybody in the room to be able to have enough context of civics to think. So what we get is what Andrew said, right? Students who might be technically skilled, but democratically unprepared and, and what does that mean for, for democracy in greater society? And yeah. We got some thinking and some work to do.

Andrew: We have to keep on keeping on. We have to have staying power, like you said.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Yeah.

Andrew: Because it is a long-term fight. The upside of it having been a 400 year fight is that it would be silly for us to think we could solve it in our lifetimes, but we have, we have, we have to keep working on it because what yeah, what choice do we have?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: What choice do we have? So we'll dig deep, we get some faith from somewhere.

Andrew: If, if we get it right, if we do our part, and maybe it's, maybe it's not us, it's our kids, or maybe it's our kids' kids or whatever, but, what's the promise? What does the world look like down the road? What does it feel like?

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: At least some component of what I see a world looking like is where all persons’ humanity is commonly recognized, and where we are all free, where people…

Dr. Val: That’s right.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: … are all free, where all people are seen and heard and are recognized as part of humanity.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: And I think that's a common ground that we can get to. I mean, you know what I mean? I'm not even going way out with this one.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I'm not going way out.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: It's not that hard.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I think freedom is attainable. And I'd like for us to see freedom for all people in our, in our lifetime. And I'd like for us to not have to depend on freedom from an institution.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Or from others. I would like for us to live and be able to walk in that, without harm or deterrence, or any entity, coming against it, but, but to truly be a free human race. And so I think we can do that. I think we can do that.

Dr. Val: I think so too.

Andrew: And that feels like a home place. I mean, to go back to, you know, this, this idea, right, is like…

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Ah feels like a homeplace. Yeah! {Excitedly}

Andrew: The things you talked about, kinship outside of bloodline, mutual aid, community, you know, shared values, like all, all those things, we expand those out. Maybe it starts in little pods like you were saying, and, but that grows and grows and grows and that, that if everyone feels like home, if everyone feels like they're at home and they can be at home, that feels pretty good.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: You get me Andrew! How do I replicate you and just have you over here? Yeah, the future looks like homeplace. I love that. That's exactly right.

Andrew: Mm.

Dr. Val: Awesome.

Andrew: Thank you. Thank you for this

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: Thank you. I really enjoyed this.

Andrew: Thank you.

Dr. Danielle Wingfield: I really appreciate the invitation. I'm so humbled and grateful for it.

Andrew: Thank you. Yes, thank you for. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your brilliance with us. This has been a lovely conversation.

[THEME MUSIC]

Andrew: So Val, what'd you think?

Dr. Val: I'm gonna start with a piece from her article. "Imagine a scene where politicians are fueling and legitimizing the resistance to educating children in schools. Rhetoric is being espoused concerning state's rights and the preservation of local control over education to rally support for laws that undermine federal authority about whom should be educated, where and how. Imagine a social climate characterized by deep racial tension, defiance of federal mandates and overtly discriminatory ideological preferences. Is this a scene from 1956 or 2025? It's difficult to tell."

Andrew: Hmm. It is difficult to tell. Yeah. Certainly we have seen this playbook before. And in some ways that's depressing, because it feels like, what have the past, 60 years been for? But, I did take a lot of inspiration from this idea of staying power, that we have to stay at it, and that there is progress. And that by understanding that this is all part of a bigger project, it helps us understand how to organize ourselves, pushing back on some of this stuff. But yeah.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Andrew: I think that quote could be just as easily ‘76 or ‘66, or 2026.

Dr. Val: Right. Um, uh, 1956 was the year in between my parents being born. One was born in 1955, the other one in 1957. And so, you know, what is really hitting me today is that that history is close enough to touch.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: And those people in that generation worked extremely hard. And so to find themselves back in this moment, probably feels deflating in many ways. And I think one thing that I, I really took from Dr. Wingfield was when she talks about being at the feet of people, who were averaging 60 years old is, you know, sitting around and helping her understand the work and the way.

And what I don't want us to lose, Andrew. And I'm, I'm glad the podcast allows us to do this. What I don't want us to lose, is our memory of what it was like being in the moment and what we did in the moment.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Val: We have the privilege of recording our thoughts on like, what is happening in this moment. Our parents, they can remember some stories, but some things were so normalized in their life, you know, that they didn't think about it as…

Andrew: It wouldn't even be worth recording.

Dr. Val: No, no. But now those are the stories that we need. Right. How did you continue to go and do, what were you experiencing when you were denied this? How did your community hold you up and make you feel steady? Right. Those are the things that we really need to know, but because our, our, I'm, I'm gonna speak for the Black community and all Black people everywhere, {laughing} but, um, because the Black community had to be, so insulated in terms of it's care for its community members. Right? That was so normal. And that's something that, thank goodness for integration and those communities don't look the same. Right? And so we don't necessarily have that home place to go to if we're not intentional about it.

Andrew: Yeah., I think that, that the power of storytelling, the power of learning from those people, I really appreciate her Teachers in the Movement project. You know, five or six hundred teachers from that era telling their stories is such a powerful repository for those stories that can help guide us in this place, that can help us think about what does it take to, to create that homeplace. And I, you know, I thought that was such a powerful framing, this bell hooks idea about home place.

And, where are the places that we can create true belonging? Where are the places that we can create safety and comfort and community? And what are the things that we need to do that? And I think, you know, particularly in, in this moment that we find ourselves now, all, all of those things that she mentioned that create those homeplaces, right?

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: Like kinship outside of bloodline, mutual aid, community, shared values, ways of you know, using the, the laws and the government where you can, where you have leverage, and then ways of creating structures around the government where it's not possible, like all those things feel like the most important things that we could be focusing on right now in this moment.

Dr. Val: Yeah, absolutely. Because what is happening, and she mentions this in her piece, is that the lack of civic instruction, censorship, teaching inaccurate history, favoring some parents' rights over others…

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: …are not only undermining our public education system, our communities, but also our democracy. And I think we don't wanna lose sight of the fact that, a free public, accessible, equitable education helps our democracy.

Andrew: Is foundational to it, right? Is a prerequisite. Yeah.

Dr. Val: Correct. And if we're not committed to that, then we aren't committed to a democracy.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: And that's heavy, and yet it is, it is real. My father says, don't be caught off guard by a lack of imagination about what can happen.

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Val: You know, and I, I, a couple years ago, I was surprised. I was absolutely surprised. And, I think we, we can no longer be surprised.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, certainly understanding the history makes it harder to be surprised by where things are, and yet I still, there are definitely still things that surprise me.

I do think, you know, back to this idea about what things have we decided not to try to address in our schools. You know, where, where have we kicked the can down the road? And the more we try to live together without actually learning together about these things that are really important…

Dr. Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: …that you know, the harder it gets to hold the democracy together.

And you know, we're not gonna fix it all. In our lifetimes, we're not gonna fix it all individually. But when I think about, to go back to, you know, Dr. Loretta Ross's holding our link in the chain idea, like what should we be focused on in that link is like, how do we make sure that our public education system stays functional and is able to, to play this really essential role.

Dr. Val: You know, it's impossible to know all of the through lines that Dr. Wingfield laid out for us. But I think what we can all cultivate is our critical thinking.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Our willingness and desire to question. Simple questions, why would they wanna ban these books?

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: Why don't we wanna talk about this history? What is so bad about learning about empathy, right? And we might not, to your point, we might not be able to change a system as quickly as we want for our kids to go through it. Right? We might not be able to change it in a school year. But as we learned from Dr. Wingfield, some of these things take decades and just the right person being absent.

Andrew: Right, right. Yeah. A judge who just happens to be out and a substitute judge is there and all of a sudden the 20 year case is over. Yeah.

Dr. Val: That's it. Right? And so, and that is why that staying power is important.

Andrew: Yeah, certainly the ways that I think about holding onto that staying power when things feel rough, like they feel right now is like you. You never know when the next opportunity's gonna come. You never know when…

Dr. Val: MmmHmm.

Andrew: … the next pendulum's gonna swing and, if you wait for the pendulum to swing. If you wait for the opportunity to come, then you're not prepared to capitalize on it. And so, in these moments with the more we can lean into community, the more we can lean into mutual aid, the more we can strengthen relationships and ties, the better prepared we'll be when inevitably a more positive, forward looking moment comes along the more we'll be able to capitalize on that.

Dr. Val: In my family that's called stay ready so you don't have to get ready.

Andrew: There you go. Yes. That is what we need to do. We need to, as Dr. Wingfield said, get our weight up and then we need to stay ready…

Dr. Val: Get our weight up.

Andrew: …so we don't have to get ready.

Dr. Val: That's right. I'm glad we're smiling at the end of this and I think we're smiling at the end of this conversation 'cause I'm thinking about that home place again. And when she described that homeplace it felt right. It felt something like, something that we could create for ourselves. And, I think it's possible and I think it has to be a place for, of refuge for all of us that we can go back to and recharge. Because you can get completely burnt out, just without that home place to reconnect.

Andrew: And to remember what we're fighting for, right? Like the vision of the world, if we get there is one of homeplace for everyone. And that feels like certainly worth fighting for.

Dr. Val: Gosh, it's, we really do solve the problem. Every episode.

Andrew: Every single episode.

Dr. Val: So we have the answer.

Andrew: Listen, y'all just listen.

Dr. Val: That's it.

Andrew: Yes, we solve the issue every single episode, which is why you should share this episode with your friends, with your neighbors, with your parenting groups, drop it into the WhatsApp group, and bring some other folks into the conversation.

Dr. Val: Bringing other folks in the conversation surfaces the things that other people might want to remain hidden and we are cleaning off the dirt. We're getting it outta here, we're exposing it because that's how we begin to heal. The other thing you could do is slide us some of your coins. It's all going to the good work. So if you have the means, please visit integratedschools.org and hit the big red donate button. All of the proceeds go to the work of Integrated Schools, including this podcast, and we appreciate everything that you can give.

Andrew: Absolutely. You can also join us on Patreon, patreon.com/integratedschools. We have a monthly happy hour coming up in a couple weeks here. We have transcripts and show notes and facilitation questions and all sorts of stuff over there. Also, grateful for your support there. And we wanna hear from you. Let us know what you're thinking about.

Where do you find HomePlace? What brings you a sense of peace? How do you have staying power? Send us a voice memo speakpipe.com/integratedschools S-P-E-A-K-P-I- p.com/integrated schools. Or just record a voice memo on your voice memo app and email it to us podcast@integratedschools.org.

Dr. Val: And to Dr. Wingfield. Thank you so much for joining us, really for, for putting your essence in a room, and on paper, your brilliance. I think she's also a candidate for audio book reading. I totally could listen to her all day.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, it was a lovely conversation.

Dr. Val: Cut

Andrew: Grateful to have had it with Dr. Wingfield and grateful as always, Val to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Dr. Val: Until next time.

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