A Pedagogical Awakening: My Pro-Womanist His-Story

In 2017, I was awarded a grant to teach a course at the University of Florida entitled “Black Wall Street”, based on the infamous Tulsa, Oklahoma district in the early 1900’s which was notable for its black business district. As I created the course, I had frequent correspondence with my late grandmother, Evelyn Daniels, about her restaurant business that she owned in the 1960’s in Tampa, FL. Her wisdom based on her experience owning the restaurant had a big impact on my creation of the “Black Wall Street” course, particularly on the section pertaining to the history of Black Women owning businesses and creating enterprises in America. The lessons from my Grandmother enabled me to create a specific pedagogy for the course that is steeped in practical strategies for the students to not only master the material of the course, but also to create enterprises for themselves while in class and in the future. This pedagogy can be considered “Radical” and “Woke” from a black feminist perspective because the course itself challenges traditional patriarchal ideology of business ownership in America and the specific focus on “Black” business ownership, especially pertaining to black women, is a subject that is traditionally not of focus in academia. I first offered the course in the Spring of 2018 and it received the highest of evaluation marks by students and faculty. From all indications, the course was a success and would not have been as such if it was not for the lessons of my late Grandmother.