Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations

2021

“UBUNTU” I am because we are: A case study examining the of an African-centered Rites of Passage program within a community based organization

Alade S. McKen Iowa State University

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Recommended Citation McKen, Alade S., "“UBUNTU” I am because we are: A case study examining the experiences of an African- centered Rites of Passage program within a community based organization" (2021). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 18557. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/18557

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“UBUNTU” I am because we are: A case study examining the experiences of an African- centered Rites of Passage program within a community-based organization

by

Alade Shola McKen

A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF

Major: Education

Program of Study Committee: Katy Swalwell, Co-major Professor Julio Cammarota, Co-major Professor Isaac Gottesman Noreen Rodriguez Douglas Wieczorek

The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred.

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

2021

Copyright © Alade Shola McKen, 2021. All rights reserved.

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my Grandmother NanaKen, Mildred Milly McKen, who was there every step of the way. I love you and couldn’t be more grateful to have you in my life.

As I write this, you are 95 years young, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have you in my life, as you consistently remind me of the importance of family and what it is to love life unconditionally. I would also like to dedicate this to my mother, Iya Amma McKen, who taught me how to be free and embrace the richness of our history and the legacy of our people. I would also like to dedicate this to my sister Ayoka Wiles, my first teacher. I would not be who I am without your guidance and support. To my tribe, my beloved wife Sudhi, and my two little angels Asani and Sewa, the love I have for you is immeasurable. You all have made me a better

Father, Husband, and Man. You all sacrificed so much to allow me to chase my dreams, and I hope that I can pour into you as much as you all have poured into me. I love you!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... vi

ABSTRACT ...... viii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Purpose ...... 5 Statement of the Problem ...... 6 Research Questions ...... 8 Positionality Statement ...... 8 The Struggle of Making Meaning ...... 10 An Outsider Within ...... 11 Summary ...... 16

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 18 Introduction ...... 18 Literature Search Strategy ...... 20 Afro-Centric Theory and Principles and Practices ...... 20 The Concept of African Centeredness ...... 21 African ...... 24 The African ...... 27 African Principles and Practices and its Purpose ...... 29 Intended Outcomes of African Centered Practices ...... 32 Intended Outcomes for Formal Education ...... 33 Intended Outcomes for Independent Education ...... 36 African Centered Pedagogy ...... 39 African Culture and Education ...... 40 African Culture as an Integrated System ...... 46 Foundations of African Centered Pedagogy ...... 49 Cultural Nationalism and Social Movements’ Influence on African Centered Pedagogy ...... 51 Contemporary Practices in Community-Based Spaces ...... 56 The Circle ...... 56 Ubuntu – “I Am Because We Are” ...... 59 The Role of the Circle and Ubuntu in African-Centered Pedagogy ...... 61 African Centered Pedagogy as Nation Building ...... 63 Misinterpretations of African-Centered Pedagogy ...... 66 Summary ...... 69

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY ...... 72

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Introduction ...... 72 The Case: Rites of Passage Program (ROP) ...... 73 Brief Description about the Site ...... 73 Theoretical Foundations of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ...... 76 Program Goals ...... 80 Participants ...... 82 Sampling ...... 82 Epistemological Assumptions ...... 84 African Worldview ...... 85 African Epistemology ...... 86 Case Study Methodology ...... 87 Data Collection ...... 89 Interview Structure ...... 92 Interview Stage One: Focused Life History ...... 92 Interview Stage Two: The Details of ...... 92 Interview Stage Three: Reflection on the Meaning ...... 92 Length of Interviews ...... 93 Document Review ...... 93 Selection of Participants ...... 94 Data Analysis ...... 95 Coding ...... 96 Data Management and Analysis ...... 97 Frameworks Analytic Codes and Descriptions ...... 98 Analysis and Interpreting the Data ...... 100 Ethical Considerations ...... 101 Issues of Trustworthiness ...... 101

CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH SITE (ILÉ-IFẸ̀ CULTURAL ARTS ACADEMY) ...... 104 Old Brooklyn Versus New Brooklyn ...... 104 Overview of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy- Brooklyn, New York ...... 105 The Meaning of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ...... 106 Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s Approach ...... 107 Core Principles ...... 109 Guiding Conceptual Framework ...... 110 Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Programs ...... 110

CHAPTER 5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ...... 113 Introduction ...... 113 Prevalent Themes ...... 115 Ancestral Memory ...... 115 Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility ...... 121

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Sankofa: Cultural Meaning Making ...... 127 Summary ...... 134

CHAPTER 6. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 137 Introduction ...... 137 Interpretation of Findings Ancestral Memory ...... 140 Interpretation of Findings Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility ...... 142 Interpretation of Findings on Sankofa: Critical Reflection ...... 144 Contributions ...... 147 Limitations ...... 148 In-Depth Discussion of Analysis: Making Meaning of the Case ...... 151 Implications ...... 154 Implications for Practice ...... 155 Implications for Theory ...... 156 Conclusion ...... 158

REFERENCES ...... 164

APPENDIX A. RECRUITMENT EMAIL ...... 172

APPENDIX B. INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...... 173

APPENDIX C. RECRUITMENT FLYER ...... 177

APPENDIX D. IRB APPROVAL LETTER ...... 178

APPENDIX E. IRB APPROVAL LETTER CONTINUATION ...... 179

APPENDIX F. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ...... 180

APPENDIX G. SCREENING INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ...... 184

APPENDIX H. SCREENING INTERVIEW FOLLOW-UP EMAIL (ACCEPTANCE) ...... 186

APPENDIX I. SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE VIA GOOGLE FORMS ...... 187

APPENDIX J. DEMOGRAPHIC FORM (VIA GOOGLE FORMS) ...... 188

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to give thanks to GOD, Olódùmarè, Ọlọ́run, to whom the of West recognize as the lord of creation of the universe and everything inside it.

Mojuba (I give thee praises) to Olorun, Olofin, Eleda, Ori, Gbogbo Orisha, Irunmoles,

Egungun, Mojuba gbogbo iku n’belese olodumare ibaye orun. Mojuba Ina-fire, Mojuba Eferere, wind and air, Mojuba Omi-water, Mojuba Aiye-earth. I give praise to the universe. I give praise to mother earth. I give praise to all of nature and its . I give praise to all my guiding spirits. I give praise to my ancestors. I give praise to all those who came before me. I give praise to my elders. I praise all those who have cared for me, protected me, guided me, and loved me.

I praise my Great Grand Parents, who embodied a vision to create and sustain a family that would do amazing things. I give praises to my Grandfather, who came to this country as a migrant from Jamaica with a dream to provide for his family. My Grandmother continues to provide me with strength, hope, and desire to continue to do better each day. It is the foundation of my mother, who traveled to Africa at the age of 16 who sought after African cultural practices through various initiation rites embracing the African worldview. It is also with the Strength and wisdom of my father, who traveled the world with his friend, Uncle Robert Nesta Marley as a

Wailer embracing the Rasta revolution. I thank you all for my breath, and I thank you for my body. I thank you for my journey. Thank you to those who brought me into the world to embrace my spiritual journey through many intentions and rites of passage ceremony from Binghamton to

Brooklyn, to Osogbo, Farmers Blvd to Freetown. One love to the brothers of Kappa Nu chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. and Joppa Lodge No. 55. To my family of Ile Omi

Toki, Ile Oshun Lari, and Ile Oturupon Sokun, your prayers have led me down the spiritual path, and I will always be in debt to you all who allow me to embrace the true spirit of community.

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Thank you all for bringing to this path to follow the path in a deeper and meaningful way.

Most importantly, my brothers and sisters, Ayoka, Ayele, Shoyinka, Shokanni, and Kwame, are my everything. To my #YSBW, #BSS, #LUCHA crew, thanks for making this moment true and reminding me to be my authentic self. Thank you for pushing me above and beyond to my committee members, especially Katy Swalwell and Julio Cammarota, and Isaac Gottesman. To you, I am forever grateful. Ase, Ase, Ase ooo!

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ABSTRACT

This study explored cultural experiences amongst . The primary construct of interest is African centered teaching, learning, and identity, which is comprised of two parts: (a) cultural values with origins in African cultures that have been intentionally exercised within a community-based organization, and (b) a social and political ideology that intentionally incorporates elements of an African worldview in the lives of alumni who participated in a community-based Rites of Passage (ROP) program within a community-based organization. This study uses a qualitative case study research methodology to investigate former students' lived cultural experiences and how these experiences influenced their identity, and how it developed over time in their everyday lives. I used semi-structured interviews to gather data.

The results revealed many themes in the participants’ lived experience, focusing on their cultural identity that may be interrelated and connected with the prominent descriptions of the African- centered worldview developed within the curriculum, practice, and day-to-day interactions.

Moreover, through alumni's voices, I investigated how their lives are connected to the program's mission, vision, and overall intended outcomes. Rooted in an Afrocentric worldview, this study highlights the history, educational process, and social context that influences how the participants make meaning of their identity through their lived experiences as a youth of African descent. This investigation highlights the meaning and purpose of the community-based programs through students' voices to improve current understandings of African American students' experience within an African-centered school context.

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Traditional educational models in the United States were designed to conform young people of African descent into a system built on inequalities offering nothing but the unequal distribution of academic resources, including but not limited to school funding, qualified and experienced teachers, books, and technologies. This socially excluded environment is not designed to allow people of color to advance due to subjected to a system designed to oppress and enslave marginalized groups' minds. Therefore, I seek education as my salvation to uncover the many things that were excluded from me; and the practice of learning to educate oneself is, itself, an act of freedom.

Many people of African descent were denied access to obtain the same education as their counterparts. When some form of educational instruction was captured, it lacked any correlation to their lived experiences as a way to define and refine who they are and use it as a tool to gain freedom. Education as a tool of liberation affirms and demonstrates the pedagogical practices necessary to create a new language and ways of operating and being in a world where their cultural identity and contributions identify African descent people to the world. This act of - telling becomes a newly created language informed by liberating pedagogical frameworks. Such language disrupts disciplinary boundaries, de-center authorities, cultural hegemony, and rewrites the institutional and discursive boundaries in which politics becomes the condition for reasserting the relationship between , power, and struggle (hooks, 1996). Throughout history, people of African descent have sought out freedom in many ways, and education was one of the many empowerment tools used to liberate through its practice (Jemal, 2017). This study explores the reflection and behaviors of participants who engaged in an institution that

2 aims to achieve an equitable and liberating culture through its pedagogy, mission, vision, and values.

Liberation through education improves the quality of life of people of color in the United

States, specifically in efforts to change the lives of youth in urban environments (Freeman,

2016). The idea of people finding liberation through the pursuit of stems from education being the foundation to gain access to resources freeing oneself from oppression. For example, The Freedom Schools of the 1960s were part of a long history of efforts to liberate people of color from the oppression that used culturally affirming educational models, including secret schools in the 18th and 19th centuries for enslaved Africans; labor schools during the early

20th century as well as Citizenship Schools formed by Septima Clark and others in the 1950s

(Kareem, 2020). Oppressed people of color have a long history of challenging traditional educational methods, from forming their independent schools to making changes within the curriculum itself (Rickford, 2016). In the fight for education equality, scholars have critically examined the traditional role of education in the pursuit of truth and sharing knowledge and information (Strong-Leek, 2008). The biases within traditional educational models are how its pedagogy and practices uphold and maintain theories of white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, and racism which have made education oppressive and hegemonic (hooks, 1994). Therefore, many were excluded and historically dehumanized from fully engaging in healthy educational practices to revisit and create a system suitable for their needs.

Carter G. Woodson stressed such educational practices should teach to revolutionize the social order for the good of the community; the education system of a country is worthless unless it accomplishes this task (Woodson, 1933). Carter G. Woodson believed that education was much more than the transferal of knowledge from teacher to student: He believed that authentic

3 education would not only teach students to think and recite information but also allow students to ask difficult epistemological and ontological questions about life, political systems, social and economic inequities, and the purpose of humankind. Woodson maintained that Black people were rendered incapable of successfully functioning in their respective societies because of the poor quality of education. Woodson asserted that even though they were being educated, it did not adequately meet their needs and thus presented a disadvantage rather than an advantage

(Bassey, 2016). Woodson’s arguments asserted that the of our experiences could shape our understanding of (Givens, 2016). To correct the many years of the miseducation of Black people, Woodson recommended that education be based on Black people's experiences and designed according to their environmental circumstances (Bassey, 2009; Bassey, 2015,

Woodson, 2006). Woodson further asserted that the focus of educational institutions should be given to the study of their culture to develop and demonstrate the extent to which their culture was determined by ideas originating from Africa (Woodson, 1933; Woodson, 1993).

Woodson insisted that the curriculum in schools should emphasize the reality of Black people to empower young people to learn from each other and their unique lived experiences.

This would help them explore their communities to make social improvements through action from collective decision-making. This idea of assessing prior knowledge of their experiences related to the classroom experience is an important tenet because it informs how students formulate ideas and make meaning within the information presented. According to the leading culturally responsive teaching theorists, activating students ’prior knowledge is an important tool in improving student engagement with the lesson as well as in helping them to make sense of new information (Athanases, Wahleithner & Bennett, 2012; Bassey, 2015; Gay, 2010;

Hammond, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009; Lipman, 1995; Maiga, 1995; Shujaa, 1995).

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Reforming African Americans' way is important for connecting with their historical past and cultural identity formation to become active social, political, and community organizers.

Many school reform initiatives, particularly in urban communities, have had little impact on the schools or the lives of the students who attend them (Ginwright, 2004). For African

American students, this effort has been particularly challenging and has a long history of challenge and reform. In the late 1960s, Black people were concerned about being isolated in white-controlled systems such as public education, leading to major decisions relative having their children in segregated schools who were then consequently the children of parents, who either directly or indirectly sanctioned hegemony, bigotry, and hatred within the society

(Rickford, 2016).

The harsh of hatred toward Black people called for more independent educational environments to get the necessary support and resources they needed. More so, rejecting educational integration on strategic, philosophical, and ideological grounds was a part of a historical era of Black self-determination that instilled a tremendous amount of self-regard and honor for leaders who were on the forefront of racial equality (Rickford, 2016). In the early

1970s, educators and community activists pushed for Black educational autonomy by establishing and operating their schools with curricular strategies and campaigns for more social mobility and open opportunity that better represented children of color (Gist, 2018). This was the start of a movement to push a curriculum that was responsive to the identities of the students represented.

Culturally responsive and multicultural education emerged as a response to the

Eurocentric bias pervasive in United States urban schools. Multicultural education was developed to address the bias underlying Eurocentric educational frameworks as an outgrowth of

5 the civil rights movement and was viewed as a social resource that could forge greater educational opportunities (Kelly, 2002; Rickford, 2016). Additionally, it was closely tied to economic power struggles, employment opportunities, and community vitality within the Black community. During the era of Black Consciousness/Black Power movements during the 1960s and 1970s, a cultural and political transformation for African American people in the United

States was viewed as the “Great Awakening” of social history where Black people traced their roots back to Africa (Konadu, 2009, p. xiii). By the 1980s into the 1990’s educators, activists, and cultural and revolutionary nationalists who shaped Black and African studies saw

Afrocentric educational approaches as one possible solution to the disproportionate failure among African American students (Ginwright, 2004). As a result, the birth of African-centered schools and community-based organizations became highly symbolic and political spaces for educational and social reform (Merry & New, 2008). With this new method, there were many challenges and accomplishments to enlighten the youth of their origins. Many students have participated in such schools of thought. Yet, there is a lack of literature that expresses how it has influenced their everyday lived experiences in a world plaguing systems and structures to oppress people of color.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore, examine, and understand the experiences of graduates (alumni) who participated in a rite of passage (ROP) program for young men and women between the ages of five and twenty-one at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy; a community- based organization located in Brooklyn, New York. The primary construct of interest is an

African centered pedagogy and its influences on identity, which is comprised of two parts: (a) cultural values with origins in African cultures that have been intentionally retained and (b) the

6 development of a social and political ideology that intentionally incorporates elements of an

African worldview in their everyday lives. This study used qualitative case study research methodology to examine the lived experience of people who participated in a program where

African-centered identity concepts are incorporated in a comprehensive developmental practice through art and culture.

Semi-structured interviews of six adults who participated and graduated from the ROP were used to understand their experiences as children and their impact as adults as they reflect on their past and present experiences. The study was designed to investigate how participants’ lived experiences are consistent with their cultural identity closely aligned with prominent African- centered worldview descriptions. Less consistent results regarding participants’ development of their cultural identity are discussed within the framework of how they perceived their experience within a cultural arts program. Respondents’ narratives were discussed concerning implications for the social construction of identity and the influence of the environment on their identity development.

Statement of the Problem

Historically, the demand for equal educational opportunity has been a central aspect of

Black struggles for liberation (Mayorga & Picower, 2018). The frame for how Black children are viewed within educational institutions has been important to reimagining how they are educated.

The framing of Black children in the context of anti-blackness, specifically in education, has been critically important to how schools reimagined and reconfigured the lives of Black children.

The influence of educational policy, privatizing public education, the constant push against teachers, students, families, and the dehumanizing Black children controlled and discarded

7 because of ongoing systemic and structural racism (Baldridge,2019; Casanova & Cammarota,

2018).

In this context, Black youth, families, and communities struggle to make sense of their lived experiences due to ongoing cases of anti-black suffering and death as demonstrated by highly visible killings of Black people, including Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner,

John Crawford, Mike Brown, and Akai Gurley; and more recently, Breonna Taylor, George

Floyd, Daunte Wright and now Ma’khia Bryant (Dumas, 2016). The concept and theorization of anti-blackness related to education for Black youth allow to identify and understand the impact of racism in educational discourse and the formation and implementation of education policy that creates systems and structures that further marginalize youth (Dumas, 2016) more precisely.

Anti-blackness is traumatizing and has crippling effects, which causes a multidimensional set of discourses and practices that permeate all society sectors that produce Black suffering, specifically in education (Mayorga, & Picower, 2018). When Black suffering is centered in education, young Black children experience a pedagogy that decenters their humanity and focuses on controlling their behaviors instead of empowering them with agency.

There is a lack of specific African pedagogical practices that reflect the culture of community-based spaces that legitimizes African stores of knowledge, productive community, and cultural practices and extends and builds upon the indigenous language. With no sense of reinforcing community ties, there is an overall lack of service to one's family, community, nation, race, and world. Also, such African practice promotes positive social relationships that impart a worldview that idealizes a positive, self-sufficient future for one's people without denying the self-worth and right to self-determination. Without a base of support, there will be a lack of cultural continuity and a safe space to promote critical consciousness.

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Without the challenge to research and practice an African-centered pedagogy that encompasses these attributes in educational research, many fundamental questions are left unanswered regarding human development needed to support a child of African descent.

Research Questions

This study was guided by one overarching question: How does an African-centered rites of passage program influence the daily lives of participants who graduated from Ilé-Ifẹ̀, a community-based African-centered organization? Four sub-questions support this primary question to guide the inquiry:

SRQ1: How do graduates of a community-based African-centered education program

make meaning of their experiences in the program?

SRQ2: How has the experience participating in a community-based African-centered

education program influenced their thinking about race, culture, and identity?

SRQ3: What about the experience of participating in a community-based African-

centered education program influenced their level of engagement professionally, socially,

and politically with race, culture, and identity?

SQR4: How do graduates see their thinking and engagement connected to the vision,

mission, and values of the program?

Positionality Statement

I was born and raised in an African-centered community highly influenced by activists and Black cultural nationalists whose intentions rested upon the agency to develop a sense of self through community, culture, and practice within indigenous spiritual traditions from the . My entire life has been centered within an African worldview that contributes to a mirage of intersecting identities, which stem from my lived experiences, spiritual beliefs, and

9 connection to African descent people's historical narrative. My lived religious and spiritual experiences as an African American Lucumi orisha devotee-initiated priest in Palo Mayombe and IFA in Osogbo in , , and New York City. The culmination of these rich and ever-growing experiences helps me better understand how my life reflects the tensions between a life defined and structured by non-physical divine and spiritual entities and the contemporary sociocultural, economic, and modern reality operating in American society.

Making meaning of my lived experiences has always presented itself as a challenge. As I embarked on a deeper understanding of self, I have worked with young people in community- based programs to recognize that I am not alone on this journey. Therefore, I sought out places like llé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy (pseudonym) to explore the understanding of myself through the youth who dreamed dreams and imagine the possibilities in life in ways that I have forgotten.

There, I found my family, my community. This unapologetic African community accepted me for who I am as a part of the second generation “holders” of African traditions in the new world.

For most, our parents were there from the beginning, seeking, learning, teaching, and growing in ways that trickled down to our feet, causing us to dance to the rhythms of our tradition, African tradition. With this understanding, my aim was always to be aligned with my higher spiritual self and always worked congruently with who I am. My role, yet unclear at the time, was to become more involved, more invested in sustaining cultural values in various ways by centering Africa in all that I do, which lead me down a path. This spiritual journey positions me to embrace this study.

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The Struggle of Making Meaning

My views and participation in African-centered programs and social movements have not been from the sideline. My views have materialized from the support of my parents, community leaders, and cultural practitioners embedded within intellectual discussions surrounding the inconsistencies between community and culture within our specific communities. I have developed a strong sense of cultural pride and racial identity that has been heightened by my critical awareness of injustices within academic and social spaces where White supremacy and dominant ideologies exist in many different forms. This experience serves as a common ground in which I continually build with conscious individuals in solidarity against oppression.

However, I find that we are determined as we still grapple with systems of white supremacy to make meaning of life and our role in this wicked society.

My role as an ROP instructor for llé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy was critical to this study.

It provided me with a deeper understanding of myself and gave me insight into the world that youth face constantly. From gang violence, grappling with their identity at a very young age, and taking on a collective role and responsibility in a community that attempts to destroy their black bodies. Constant deep reflection and critical analysis of my everyday lived experiences helped bolster my analysis and the theoretical foundations of complex educational processes in and out of community-based spaces. As I sought to deeply understand the social, cultural, and economic boundaries within cultural organizations, I also wanted to examine how the foundations of llé-Ifẹ̀ construct meaning for the youth who grew to be such dynamic cultural leaders in educational to corporate spaces.

I struggled to make meaning of my cultural and collective principles that were the foundations of my upbringing as I entered the academy of higher education. I struggled to

11 understand my role as a researcher and community member. I often thought about how I could critically examine a potential route to escape the colonial mentality that plagued my mind as I constantly entered into white Eurocentric spaces. I often wondered if someone shared the same experiences and if they felt that their ethnicity or cultural background is inferior to others because of colonization. Working on combating those issues with youth at llé-Ifẹ̀ allowed me to think about these social ties and connections to African and African American organizations.

Moreover, how do we make meaning of particular challenges: the struggle to build coalitions and make meaning of our community, struggles, and identity as an African people.

How do we maintain our stance, our passion as we transition into adulthood? How do we teach our children the truth? As I reflect on my encounters with police brutality, all of these questions be a product of a failing educational system that did not fully prepare me to engage in a world controlled by systemic forms of oppression. These experiences and many others led me to join and participate in llé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy to make meaning of the struggle rather than struggle to make meaning.

An Insider and Outsider Within

As I approach this study, I examine my role as a friend, community member, parent, advocate, and protector of a mission and vision that embodies a path my ancestors have fought and died for. I also understand my position as a researcher, a Black man seeking a Ph.D. and a product of the academy of higher education. It is an ongoing fight, but it looks, smells, and tastes different when you are constantly grappling with your own identity as you can’t help to embrace the vibrations of those songs of freedom that swiftly pass you by in the cool breezes on a street block in the neighborhood that raised you. There is a history there that can’t be ignored.

However, you remember the dreams you sought after in these Eurocentric spaces that don’t

12 allow you to express yourself how you can see your voice and be heard without judgment. The process itself constrains the mind to be confined to a system that can paint the picture of your lived experiences. I find myself soul searching for a place where I can be free from the academy’s shackles. So I revisit the streets which birthed the spirits of cultural nationalists and

Freedom Fighters as I find myself wandering from my neighborhood to seek more from the world, from what at least I thought existed. Not understanding the of education while fighting to resist capitalism, essentially “making it” by obtaining the all-mighty dollar and wondering how I can make education a tool that my family valued.

With my family's guidance, I was pushed to continue my education to seek answers to our people's questions and conceptualize the overlapping processes of inequities among groups with different cultural orientations. As I started my journey, I continue to seek answers by asking better questions, contemplating realities as an outsider within the academy of scholars. As I gained the tools to go back to the streets from whence, I came only to find myself a privileged outsider within my community because of my educational experience. I am constantly reminded that this work is two-fold. One, it is important and empowering to highlight the work of an

African-centered community-based organization. However, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my role as a researcher using scholarly methods that are Eurocentric to examine and simplify, strip apart and compartmentalize Black realities and their human and spiritual .

I struggle with this since my experiences are constant and overlapping, and forever fluid.

The constant tension between my roles may present challenges in conducting this research. I continued to revisit the intersection of the several roles I held As an insider at llé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural

Arts Academy and at the same time an outsider in my mind due to the nature of how to approach

13 this study as an academic. I was constantly aware of the biases that I hold and could potentially bring to this study. And how that affects my perception. Also, I use my role as a community member and my privileges to gain access to the introspective meanings of the experiences within an ever-changing organization that I am a product. With each twist and turn, I realize this journey of “home” would mean something different, and it will change me forever.

Homecoming

A junkie walking through the twilight

I'm on my way home

I left three days ago, but no one seems to know I'm gone

Home is where the hatred is

Home is filled with pain, and it,

Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again-

Gil Scott-Heron (Home Is Where The Hatred Is, 1971)

Many educational spaces are viewed as places where students and instructors alike can explore diversity and embrace diversity; however, these same institutions often become complicities in domination and oppression (Patton, 2004). The fracturing between the duality is situated in politics, language, and how institutions embrace and reflect the population they serve.

In this study, “home” is a place that encompasses New York City, including Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. “Home” is a comfortable and uncomfortable nexus inhabited by people from all over the world, but just like the academy, people of color are positioned as outsiders within their environment in which they live and operate (Dillard, 2000;

Patton, 2004). “Home” is one connection to themselves and everyone around them. However, home can be a place of pain. Collins (1986), in her classic essay on learning from the outsider

14 within, argues that African American women scholars have the potential to use insight from their experiences at the intersections of race, gender, and class to ask new research questions and to bring a new lens reflecting the Black woman’s standpoint. I argue that people of African descent represented in this study have the same potential to challenge, innovate, and make evident their lived experiences unseen by a conventional disciplinary lens using an outsider and insider’s viewpoint to ask new inquiries about their experiences. In this respect, they can be perceived as outsiders because of their culture, identities, and overall placement of their existence relating to foundations of racism embedded into this nation's fabric. As an insider, they are situated in the true of African culture that was persevered and carried from generation to generation.

This concept of home is where the challenges are, and even though Scott-Heron refers to “home” as a place where the hatred is, I will travel back home to unveil how people from the community embrace and exist and make meaning of their experience in the place they call home.

The concept of community in contemporary society has eroded to mean mostly housing complexes where people live in close proximity having little or nothing to do with each other.

Community is, however, more than just living close to each other. I use the term community as it relates to the African American community. In its applied sense, the community is an identifiable area with recognizable boundaries (geographical and psychological) and shares a common set of experiences and conditions (events, worldview, values, beliefs, etc.). The community provides a sense of belonging and desire to secure a particular effect (Nobles, 1993). Community, therefore, represents a place or identifiable area simultaneously or mind-set, history and set of shared experiences and conditions, and a people's sense of being and belonging. A spiritual and emotional connection that is expanded far beyond physical proximity.

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A community is simultaneously an identifiable place and a collection of connected people with a shared common worldview, experiences, values, and beliefs. It is a shared collective memory in the form of values and beliefs that are a special determiner of community in the

African American experience. Specific group affiliation, i.e., religion (Muslim, Christian,

Traditional), migratory origin (southern, eastern), new diaspora continental (e.g., Hausa, Yoruba,

Ethiopian, Somali, etc.), and Caribbean migrants (e.g., Jamaican, Haitian, etc.), also create particular distinctions within the African American community. In some African American communities, program affiliation would also define a community where people situate themselves within these specific spaces called “home.”

Currently, I am positioned back in this place called “home.” As much as it is welcoming and rich with tradition and the immersion of culture, issues revolve around the inherently problematic community. These issues of the community are economic, political, and systemic.

People are displaced by gentrification in an ever-growing and ever-changing community that does not meet the people’s needs who reside there. The impact of racism, stereotyping, and labeling of African descent children remains unchanged as youth are being subjected to racialized profiling leading to incarceration and seemingly continuing to disempower one group by systems of oppression that seek to empower others (Alexander, 2020). I see myself in these children. More importantly, I find myself dealing with the same tension and resistance to oppression these children face.

As a critical researcher, I am aware that I must be reflexive, which requires a willingness to consider how one’s background, personal values, and experiences affect what one can observe and analyze. Temple and Young (2004) explain that positionality can affect research outcomes and interpretations because “one’s position within the social world influences how you see it” (p.

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164). I pursued a research strategy that involves recognizing and analyzing how my positionality facilitates specific forms of understanding. I recognize that I must situate my position in society, including my identity construction and cultural backgrounds, to have divergent understandings of the world. My experiences, beliefs, and assumptions bring forth assertion of self-valuation and self-definition; the awareness of these interlocking systems of race, gender, and class oppression can alter my view of African culture's importance becomes more salient.

Summary

African American students have and continue to experience school in various negative and positive ways. One of the approaches to counter educational issues Black students face is an

African-centered approach in and out of community-based spaces to provide positive connections. Culturally relevant school experiences through which African and African

American history and culture are central to students’ educational experiences. However, research providing the link between this approach and academic and social success is scarce within the literature. In particular, how the pedagogy and the practice in African-centered education are linked to their everyday lived experiences as adults. Moreover, the research is limited on how students who participated in African-centered rites of passage program make meaning of their experience as adults and internalize the willingness to sustain African identity, culture, and values to address how African American inequity had taught them in their adolescent years.

Chapter 2 provides a review of the literature and highlights the concepts of African- centered education and its foundations to gain a deeper understanding of its intentions when applied in educational spaces such as community-based organizations. I explored the literature gap regarding the lack of context on reflecting the lived experiences of African descent youth who participated in an African-centered program. Moreover, I explored how the mission vision

17 and pedagogical framework influence their current life and their outlook on African-centered education for youth in the future. Chapter 3 provides the methodology in which I present a brief description of Ilé-Ifè Cultural Arts Academy and its ROP program. Also, I provide the theoretical foundations of Ilé-Ifè, its program goals, and participants of the study. I also cover the epistemological assumptions from the African Worldview, Afrocentricity, and African

Epistemology. Moreover, I discuss the data collection, analysis, coding, and management from a case study methodology. Lastly, I discuss any issues surrounding trustworthiness and ethical considerations.

In Chapter 4, I offer an in-depth look at Ilé-Ifè Cultural Arts Academy. From its meaning to its approach and core principles and the guiding conceptual framework in its programs.

Chapter 5 provides the results from the data and the prevalent themes of Ancestral Memory,

Ubuntu, and Sankofa. I provide a discussion and recommendations for future research in Chapter

6 to interpret the findings throughout the study. With this understanding, I offer implications for theory and practice to offer a discussion for reflection.

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to focus on the lived experience of individuals who have participated in an African-centered community-based organization. By reflecting on how their connections with their peers, instructors, community members, and overall participation and expectations within a Rites of Passage program, each participant is situated in an urban community with a demographic of primary people of color. The research questions are designed for each participant to reflect on the organization's cultural experience and their community.

More specifically, to describe how they identify with African descent people while making meaning of their experience in a post-colonial world of systemic oppression. Although the literature is limited on how adults reflect and make meaning on African-centered experiences related to their current lived experience, the literature offers conceptual frameworks for applying the African-centered worldview and its intended purpose. This framework grounds the study as it has been useful in investigating interventions that promote family connections, pride, spiritual healing, and community building. It also provides a deeper understanding of how an African- centered worldview is integrated into a Rites of Passage program with cultural competencies in an educational setting.

In Chapter 2, I provide an overview and synthesis of the literature relevant to this study. I begin by providing definitions and scholarly views on African-centeredness concepts and perspectives and their relation to the African worldview, cultural nationalism, and African- centered pedagogy. While Africa, the continent, is mentioned throughout this study, I define

Africa as the human species' origin. African is used generally to refer to humans who trace their biological and cultural origin to Africa as a point of origin since the beginning of recorded

19 human memory. Within this study, the term also refers to those regardless of other geographical and biological points of physical origin, maintaining identifiable cultural, political, and racial connections to Africa as the site of origin for their combined biological and cultural genealogy. I use the term “people of African descent” to distinguish this experience.

The works cited contain scholars who specifically studied African and African descent people's lived experiences and cultural practices using normative Eurocentric theory generated from the long-view genealogy and constellation of African cultural meaning-making texts. This practice attempts to translate and recover such experiences to preserve cultural references that have been stripped away from people of African descent. Because such scholars bear the burden of explaining the intellectual ground on which it stands, I included these definitions to reference some of the terms that come up more frequently throughout this study. It is not, however, a substitute for the ongoing discussion of these and other terms. Nor am I attempting to remove any assumptions behind these terms, not only as they relate to the study but also all academic areas of knowledge production.

I also used working definitions of scholars and analyzed the relationship between

African-centeredness and African practices used in community-based spaces in the United

States. Chapter 2 includes the themes that emerged from the literature, including the framing of

Black education specifically for children of African descent within the context of anti-blackness;

African-centered education, theories, principles and practices; African-centered pedagogy and its history in education; and the application of the African worldview, and the ideologies used as tools to problematize dominant educational practices domestically. I examine some of the driving forces of African-centered education, such as African-centered practices like the “circle” and how it’s used as a multifaceted space to cultivate core cultural-historical

20 perspectives and ideologies of various African systems. The literature review examines cultural nationalism and the key stakeholders who help develop comprehensive, community- based, community-driven African-centered learning models as a liberation tool. The literature review presents critiques of African-centered education and practices of African cultural concepts, ancient and contemporary, and my analysis of the critiques and models of African- centered education and how it is used in educational spaces to expand ideas on community and the political and ideologies structures.

Literature Search Strategy

In searching for exactly what comprises these African ideals and developing theories, there is an assumption that African-centered thought is expansive, which is all too often collapsed into one variant of Afrocentric scholarship. This needs to be further examined where lived experiences, observations, and experimentation happening in real-time within communities

( & Carroll, 2012). There is a significant gap in the literature that connects the relationship between collective ancient cultural heritage, a unified philosophical approach to reality, and a postmodern collective experience of overcoming oppression. Therefore, to frame this study, such terms as African-centeredness, Afrocentricity may be used rather broadly to refer to a range of loosely integrated beliefs, practices, values, orientations, and behaviors to understand how

African culture is conceptualized in the literature.

Afro-Centric Theory and Principles and Practices

African-centered (and its variations as Africa-centered, Afrocentric, Africentric,

Afrocentricity, Africentricity, and African-worldview) theory is understood as the critical analysis of Africana life, history, and culture from the perspective of people of African descent, with the ultimate goal of centering the history and culture of African people across the diaspora

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(Maat, Carroll, 2012). African-centered thought could be interpreted in many ways based on the reality of human existence and as an approach to making meaning of the conditions of people of

African descent within the framework of African conceptions, beliefs, and of the universe. While theoretical assumptions about African centeredness provide overall interpretations of the African/Black experience, the interpretation, articulation, institutionalization, and perpetuation of survival tend to be a consistent phenomenon (Carroll &

Jamison, 2011).

Survival in this context is the urgency of restoring a sense of self-hood, especially those who have felt displaced and stripped from their origins related to religion, spirituality, and other forms of self-identification. I define survival as the act of preserving the history, culture, and social attributes of a people through organizations committed to sustaining the pedagogy and practice in its wholeness for people of African descent. Many of the traditions of several countries in the diaspora embrace African principles, theories, and practices. I investigate how cultural leaders have used African perspectives before colonial influence to provide a path to contemporary methods of confronting systemic racism.

The Concept of African Centeredness

The definition of African-centeredness (and variations as Africa-centered, Afrocentric,

Africentric, Afrocentricity, Africentricity, and African-worldview) theory and methodologies varies across disciplines. Over the past 200 years, eminent Black scholars (Diop, Obenga, Du

Bois, Asante, Fanon, Nobles, Rodney, Blyden, Garvey) and a long line of leaders and activist from Africa, America, and across the Diaspora have been instrumental in defining an African- centered intellectual school of thought and an African or worldview. Black scholars such as Asante, Akbar, Nobles, Hilliard, Diop, T'Shaka, Karenga, Clarke, and Ani have been

22 engaged in reclaiming ancient African philosophical systems to interpret a distinctive contemporary African school of thought. The African-centered worldview has a core philosophical foundation derived from the classic African civilizations of Kemet, Nubia, Kush, and Axum as a baseline conception of human beings and the universe (Asante & Abarry, 1995;

Asante, 1988; Diop, 1978; Hilliard, 1985; Williams, 1987). The African-centered perspective assumes that African epistemologies, ideals, and values must be at the center of any analysis involving African descent people.

This analysis derives the terms "Afrocentric, Africentric, or African centered," which are interchangeable terms representing the conceptual idea categorizing an ideology and practice rooted in African people's cultural image and interest. Moreover, African epistemologies and philosophy stem from the worldview of African systems that encompasses various cultural practices from the continent of Africa. It is also a critical and historical reflection of Africa held by both Africans and non-Africans who adopt such practices within the United States. It provides a critical inquiry of discovering and documenting the indigenous African beliefs and thought systems. The focus is not only on the African experience but also the various dimensions embedded in its practices when expressed in various contexts. This process takes us from the basic concepts of discussing the human experience's fluid nature in general and African experience. The African experience in the modern world comprises framing and focusing questions that shape multiple identity sites for African descent people. Being mindful that there are unifying and distinguishing characteristics of African people as we center the experiences throughout this study.

Asante (2017), one of the major theorists and researchers on the concept of Afrocentric school of thought, has gathered a comprehensive list of activists who influenced the idea behind

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African centeredness as it relates to the description, behaviors, traditions, and thoughts of

African development. He has noted that the principal motive behind all of their work seems to have been knowledge for African people's cultural, social, political, and economic liberation by first recentering African minds. Asante (2000) also states that one of the central Afrocentric ideas is distinguished by a defense of African cultural elements as historically valid in the context of art, music, and literature and a celebration of centeredness and agency and a commitment to a shift in vocabulary that eliminates negative stereotypes about people of African descent. Since inception, these ideas have evolved and have been revolutionized in action and practice in cultural and community context. Asante (2000) argues that the Afrocentric school of thought is a tool to give freedom to explore all dimension of the African’s presence in the world by re-centering the African person as an agent, which denies the hegemony of European thought and critiques the process and the extent of the dislocation caused by the cultural, economic and political domination of Europe.

Afrocentricity, another theory of social change, represents an attempt to highlight cultural importance, reclaim history, and correct Eurocentrism's distortions (Mullings, 2000). Although there are different variations of Afrocentricity, the concept of culture also varies with each definition. For this literature review, I understand that culture is more than an independent social system. However, it is filled with revolutionary concepts and theories which are deemed necessary for achieving liberation. Culture defined here is not a fixed set of traits, values of behaviors, nor a merely set of principles defining a practice. Culture is dynamic, fluid, and always changing because of the context and the historical reality (Idang, 2015). More importantly, African culture is not defined by a Eurocentric representation of Africa. However, culture can be defined through the exchange and constant interaction between people within the

24 diaspora in their continuous struggle for survival. Afrocentricity allows us to understand that people of African descent are here after being enslaved, ripped, and torn away from our culture is a miracle only to create something new through transferring and rediscovering and reworking elements from various parts of the continent.

African-centeredness and misdefined concepts have created a discourse that has found its way into conversations about race, identity, spirituality, and culture within pedagogy and curriculum in academia. The discussion of Afrocentric epistemology points to these concepts; however, it is still a term that is used so broadly and loosely to reflect a perspective that places people of African descent and their concerns, culture, and interests at the center of a particular inquiry, struggle, strategy, or analysis (Ransby,2000). The idea of centering African history and its pre-colonial state to its modern-day political and class struggles provides a narrative that cannot be categorized into sections. Afrocentrism, along with the other various terms of African-centered, encompasses many distinct intellectual and political traditions. These traditions have been formulated by many nationalist thinkers that have generally applied yet distinctly used it as a tool to take an oppositional stance against oppressive dominance of Eurocentrism (Asante, 1998 Ransby, 2000 Marable, 2000).

African Epistemology

“Heritage” by Countee Cullen

What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang? One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,

What is Africa to me? So, I lie, who all day long Want no sound except the song Sung by wild barbaric birds Goading massive jungle herds, Juggernauts of flesh that pass; Trampling tall

25 defiant grass; Where young forest lovers lie, Plighting troth beneath the sky. So, I lie, who always hear, Though I cram against my ear; Both my thumbs and keep them there, Great drums throbbing through the air. So, I lie, whose fount of pride, Dear distress, and joy allied, Is my somber flesh and skin, With the dark blood, dammed within Like great pulsing tides of wine; That, I fear, must burst the fine; Channels of the chafing net Where they surge and foam and fret.

In an old remembered way, Rain works on me night and day. Quaint, outlandish heathen gods

Black men fashion out of rods, Clay, and brittle bits of stone, In a likeness like their own, My conversion came high-priced; I belong to Jesus Christ, Preacher of humility; Heathen gods are naught to me. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of the twice-turned cheek, Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth thus, in my heart Do I play a double part.

Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black,

Thinking then it would not lack Precedent of pain to guide it, Let who would or might deride it;

Surely then this flesh would know; Yours had borne a kindred woe. Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,

Daring even to give You Dark, despairing features where, Crowned with dark, rebellious hair,

Patience wavers just so much as

Mortal grief compels, while touches Quick and hot, of anger, rise To smitten cheek and weary eyes. Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed. All-day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.

Lest a hidden ember set. Timber that I thought was wet Burning like the dryest flax, Melting like the merest wax., Lest the grave restore its dead. Not yet has my heart or head In the least way realized, They and I are civilized.

In my reflection, the words of poet Countee Cullen, “What is Africa to me?” resonates as a way for the author to seek a deeper understanding of the everyday practices of speech, style,

26 music, art, and rituals of Africa. Thus, as people of African descent try to piece together images and language stemming from their African roots, they simultaneously gather and tracing pieces to construct a place they can call home. The diverse perspectives presented are a product of

African epistemologies, which offer a framework where communities interpret their past, understand their present, and imagine their future. African epistemology fosters a fundamental paradigmatic shift in the conceptualization of African knowledge, which includes the African conception of the nature of knowledge, the means used to gain knowledge, the criteria for the assessment of the validity of knowledge, as well as the purpose of the pursuit of knowledge

(Asante & Mazama, 2005). Moreover, African epistemology examines the reality, culture, and behavior of ancient African people. Many scholars have introduced African epistemology through the concept of Afrocentricity, which reconceptualizes the social relations of domination and resistance by recognizing the paradigm of race, class, and gender and how these identities can be reexamined and used as a way of assessing the reality of people of African descent

(Asante, 2007).

The underlying assumptions of African-centered epistemologies understand one's meaning of life, the world, and relationships with others and oneself. The basis of this framework is grounded in an African worldview (i.e., an African ontology, , , epistemology, and praxis) that connects one with the concepts, thoughts, and practice rooted in the cultural image and interest of African people (Carroll, 2010). This can be seen as a representation of the lived experiences, history, traditions as the center of analyses as one makes meaning of the world.

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The African Worldview

The terms African-centered worldview or Afrocentric/Africentric worldview have been used to describe African origin's cultural values and African descent throughout the world, capturing African people's life experiences, history, and traditions as the center of analyses

(Nobles, 2016). However, the African worldview and its philosophy, according to Mbiti,1969, refers to the and perception behind how people of African descent think, act or speak in different situations of life. He that it is extracted from proverbs and morals of an oral tradition of various African communities. This notion is constructed on the philosophy of cultural beliefs that are difficult to categorize or lock into one philosophical belief due to the difficulty of translating the beliefs and practices into a Eurocentric framework.

However, the terms, theories, and perspectives have been applied so broadly and loosely to encompass an experience that incorporates multiple methods in which people of African descent gather a sense of sustaining a sense of community within their culture. As scholars and activists of African descent define and understand African descent communities, there is a consistent questioning of what should be included within the discourse on how African descendant communities are defined, how they progress, and their future intentions (Haddix,

2020). The African worldview can be seen as a guiding framework that promotes African- centered cultural practices integrated with educational methods in the United States.

The African worldview contains African ideology and lifestyle in addition to its theory and actions. Someone can intellectually understand the social, cultural, and political values of an

African-centered ideology, but lifestyle reflects those practiced values. I use the term lifestyle because it represents a range of behaviors and activities, such as recreation, diet, dress, relationships, etc., that permeate a person’s daily experiences. Practice and values are embedded

28 in the language in meeting and greeting with respect for elders, music, dance, oral tradition, proverbs, myths, stories, and religion

Africa remains a complex area for scholarly study because the ambiguity of the subject continues to be a source for imagination, interpretation, and debate (Asante, 2007). For many decades, Black scholars and researchers (Akbar, 1985; Asante, 1987; Baldwin, 1980; Nobles,

1985; Schiele, 1994) have argued for an alternative social paradigm grounded in various cultural backgrounds the Black experiences. Asante(1987), for example, a leading scholar of

Afrocentricity, argues when we center each ethnic group in their own historical and cultural experiences, we expand our knowledge of and appreciation of the human experience. He offers an Afrocentric paradigm essential in humanizing the African experience and sees it as knowledge and what is to be accepted as real. Through its educational system, Afrocentric education seeks to enrich and humanizes our world. It is not about cultural separation or another form of supremacy; it restores or revitalizes Africans' humanity and everyone's general humanity. This process repairs our way of thinking, allowing us to rethink what we consider authentic and reexamine what theories and practices are considered useful by opening our minds to other possibilities. This perspective seeks no advantage, no self-glorification, no hegemony in its relation to others; thus, it humanizes our world by fostering mutual dignity and respect

(Asante, 1993).

This should not suggest that African-centeredness requires a one-size-fits-all definition; my survey of various definitions of African-centeredness and all the terms it encompasses shows that there are at least three consistent themes that scholars within various disciplines agree upon as it relates to education. First, within an academic discipline, the concept of African centeredness in has concerned itself with analyzing the experiences of African

29 and people of African descent through their cultural lens, with the ultimate goal of using the knowledge gained to change the social experiences they continually face (Maat & Carroll,

2012). Secondly, African-centeredness demands centering African descent people's experiences and studying their history, specifically in this context, within the United States. Lastly, African people’s cultural lens and worldview and traditional practices educational strategies informed by

African traditions.

In the 1980s and 90’s the celebration of African culture remained a collaborative effort to overcome racial self-hate and to instill Black self-love to anti-Black racism, in addition to the development and preservation of a distinctive Black ethnocultural identity and the recognition of

Africa as the true homeland of those who are of African descent (Shelby, 2003). Afrocentrism increasingly became seen as a tool for addressing social ills and a means of grounding community efforts toward self-determination and political and economic empowerment. By this time, Black cultural nationalist movements were composed of thousands of organizations, artists, and activists and were highlighted in many political spaces. Creating the idea of sovereignty over a community by maintaining a social and political identity that incorporates politics, economics, culture, and religion from various African practices.

With an emphasis upon self-determination for Black communities and accountability of

Black leaders, the growing strength of cultural nationalism is seen in the new manifestations of

Black consciousness because of the impact on the youth of African descent.

African Principles and Practices and its Purpose

African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world. One of its central tenets is culture being one of its fundamental sources of a people's identity, purpose, and direction. There is a continuous dialog with African culture were seeking answers to deeply

30 understand its history is a vastness and the multitude of cultural traditions on the continent. However, spirituality and ; social and political organization; economic organization; and its creative production (art, music, literature, dance, etc.) come with a variation of answers that can be rather difficult to differentiate and or compartmentalize. There is a creative and sacred aesthetic in the principles and practices of African traditions that are culturally grounded in the ancestral African legacy. Throughout the Americas, this creative expression has survived. It is woven into the philosophy, cosmology, and global experiences of traditional African Diaspora and encapsulated in a trajectory of race and spiritual and historical memory. It finds expression in the elaborate artistic, creative symbols, icons, dances, songs, tales, music, and talismans that harness its energy force (Vega, 1999).

Within these practices, some principles have far-reaching implications for the formal education of today. They operate in a way that cannot be merely translated into the modern curriculum and pedagogical theories and practices. It has a holistic effect that intertwines every aspect of the human experience. Within an African worldview, the cardinal principles are largely similar to the goals of development of the child through its transition into adulthood and their role within a community.

Its purpose is to bring forth a foundational education that begins at birth and ends with death. In some cases, an ancestor also plays a significant role in African societies (Adeyemi &

Augustus, 2003). With this understanding, a child has to pass various life stages within a system of education defined for every status in their life. Essentially instilling principles and practices from the family and clan tradition. In pre-colonial Africa, such practices would be highly recognized through and rites of passage or initiation ceremonies.

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The initiation activity enjoyed a high degree of formalism: it was characterized by teaching and learning predetermined material in a specific physical setting with a clear-cut distinction between pupils and teachers (Rodney, 1972; Tiberondwa, 1978; Datta, 1984). As in the training of young people for specialized roles in the community, initiation ceremonies lasted for varying periods.

For example, among the Poro society in Sierre Leone, West Africa, initiation schooling lasted for as long as five years, while the Tonga of Zambia initiated their female children over six weeks four months (Datta, 1984). Within the Yoruba culture in Nigeria, West Africa, ceremonies can last from three days to several weeks to a year. In either case, initiation ceremonies were meant to offer specific instruction in a wide range of areas, including farming, weaving, fishing, diplomacy, history, and spiritual upliftment, determining the path of one’s destiny. Female initiates underwent physiological, social, and moral education to become capable mothers and wives. On the other hand, male children who were initiated were trained to become defenders of their villages and good providers for their families (Kalusa, 1998). Therefore, it is important to understand with an open mind as we attempt to make meaning for people and their culture.

As it relates to education, African-centered values and practices applied to a community- based organization serve several purposes. Defining its purpose is broad and far-reaching and involves creating a view of the world that centers people of African descent through sustaining and always expanding and deepening the dialog with African culture and its people by; recovering, creating, recreating, and circulating African culture; by expanding the educational process by defining, defending, and developing and advancing the conscientious struggle. With this understanding, all organizations that apply African practices define their purpose based on their communities' very specific needs. Just like the idea of culture, one’s purpose is fluid and ever-changing. How this is accomplished can vary, but overall, no “one” concept defines its

32 purpose. Many scholars believe that an African-centered education purpose is to empower the sense of self by teaching students about their cultural history. It is accomplished by nurturing ethnicity and educating students about their cultural ideologies while strengthening them to become autonomous individuals (Asante, 1989). Also, it has been stated that the Afrocentric curriculum framework purpose is to compose of African thought and logic, creating a model for

“knowledge, culture, and social development that includes instruction about Africa’s “art, literature, music, religion, anthropological development as well as traditional core subjects such as language arts, history, math, and science” (Watkins, Lewis, and Chou, 2001, p. 56). When applied to educational spaces within the school system, its purpose is to provide a holistic approach with a contextual focus on relationships. Cultural history brings balance to student learning and development (Murrell, 2002). However, the conditions in which schooling takes place must be established with awareness about the effects these conditions have on the students

(Nasir, 2012).

Intended Outcomes of African Centered Practices

African centered practices serve many purposes, and the outcomes vary based on where and how it is applied in various contexts. Broadly I use the concepts of a “practice,” which relates to the values, culture, and everyday social interactions that people of African descent adopt, borrow, and identify with as it relates from a particular context in Africa’s history. By no means such practices are viewed as one monolithic mass, however within its differences and similarities in class and politics, I use the term practice to understand organizations deeply, schools and communities respond to sustaining historical notions of culture and the surviving products of those cultures today. The overall intention is not to romanticize a fixed moment in history as a source of salvation to modern dilemmas but to understand and appreciate the

33 conversation of such practices used as a source for progressive and liberating practices.

Therefore, its outcomes vary as it relates to formal education, independent education, and specifically to address the community's needs.

Intended Outcomes for Formal Education

African-centered practices related to formal education seek to address systemic forms of oppression, specifically around educational equity. It has also been a response to combat the disproportionate number of African American students struggling in schools within the United

States. Several studies have established that contrary to widespread beliefs, formal and informal education was actively in Africa's existence before colonialism's commencement. At the formal, nonformal, and informal levels, Africans in various parts of the continent were consistently transmitting knowledge to the younger generation. asserts that “the colonizers did not introduce education into Africa. They introduced a new set of formal educational institutions that partly supplemented and partly replaced those that were there before” (London,

Bogle L’Overture 1972 263). In ancient times, education across

Africa differed across ethnicities, all of which operated within various economic, political, and social systems. Yet, there was identifiable unity in the culture of learning and knowledge transmission among these groups. The identifiable cultural homogeneity reflects in the traditional education which was available to the younger generation across Africa. For instance, a great deal of importance and solemnity was attached to the passing of knowledge from one generation to another. Education in the most traditional sense of Africa education was also not done in isolation but involved collecting individuals, such as age-grade (Moumouni

1968, 15). These individuals were taught progressively as they grew in age and maturity, with their education emphasizing both the physical and metaphysical realities.

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Although parents, nuclear and extended family members considered it their primary responsibility to ensure that their children were well socialized according to social requirements, traditional also relied extensively on community effort. The high importance attached to education makes the popular African saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.”

This ensures that even children born to less privileged parents have as much opportunity to transcend their economic disadvantage by being taught by both the rich and the poor alike.

Moumouni acknowledges that community-oriented efforts give the appearance of an unstructured and unconventional system that leaves such an issue as important as education to individuals' whims and responsibility within society. However, he insists that far from being undecided and incoherent, education in Africa is so structured that, from the time of birth until adulthood, the individual is subjected to a well thought out plan to impart cultural values, discipline, education, and all that is needed to ensure an adult who will be useful to the overall growth and development of society (Moumouni 1968, 16).

African-centered education within formal school environments presents a different worldview from the widely accepted and upheld Eurocentric perspective (Ashanti, 2003). A counterargument would be that the Afrocentric curriculum provides cultural values taught within traditional standardized schools can be viewed as problematic. Although teachers can implement aspects in the curriculum, it does not completely center Africa and its knowledge system as the foundation for learning. This curriculum content of this kind is not the norm (Kunjufu, 2002). It can also differ between teacher instructional styles, which can also affect the way students learn.

What is problematic is how the current instructional style commonly employed in public schools legitimizes white, upper-class males as the standard knowledge. Also, such schools continue to

35 position Western education as the center of legitimate knowledge and any other knowledge as additional and insignificant. Eurocentric curriculums teach Black and Indigenous students that their lives and their ancestors' lives are not worth learning about while simultaneously teaching

White students that they are highly valued in spaces of knowledge and power, which inadequately meets African Americans' needs students.

The majority of students presently receive a linear-focused education. Many look to

“unconventional” styles to help motivate students to develop skills to think, act, speak like their white counterparts to meet the status quo of the dominant hegemony of traditional Eurocentric schooling (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). Although a circular that takes a cognitive approach that includes components of Afrocentric education that address the total needs of

African American students may yield greater results with students; there are still many limitations to the process in which it can be practiced due to students being tested with intense frequency, and the test is given greater weight (Kohn, 2000). Therefore, within traditional schools with the standardized curriculum at its core, an Afrocentric curriculum that is merely integrated only cooperates with normative ideologies that may only partially restore the missing elements of inspiration, sacrifice, vision, and victory that are beneficial for African American students and their families in many traditional public schools (Kunjufu, 2000).

I believe that the process of restoration and awakening consciousness for African

Americans to be empowered to forge onward with a collective cognitive mentality that advances the entire community can happen in a school. However, there may be limitations too difficult for students to navigate a path that helps them reach their full potential if they do not know the importance of their cultural significance within the world ‘ (Molefi, 1988, Moore, 2005).

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Intended Outcomes for Independent Education

Since the 1700s, African Americans have established their schools (independent Black community-based organizations of CBOs) designed to meet their children's particular needs

(Ratteray & Shujaa, 1987). Most CBO’s presently in existence were developed, in part, as a consequence of African American parents' community control concerns and their efforts to have some say in their children's education in the public schools. As a result, many African American parents decided that their only solution was to begin their schools, developed by African

Americans for African American children (Weusi, 1973).

Examining the internal and external political forces that contribute to change for communities-based programs, the intended outcomes greatly differ from independent educational spaces to market-based approaches to public education and schools shaped by reform efforts.

With the lack of scholarship that explores the approaches that inform community-based programs, we are often left with the single narrative about how Black youth are impacted by school closures, charter schools, and a rise in fast-paced teacher education programs, along with accountability measured by test scores and gentrification in major cities across the country

(Baldridge, 2019). As the youth of African descent are being racialized, commodified, fixed, and subjected to social and political inequality, scholarship has shown that youth need programs that address their cultural, political, and academic needs.

Independent educational spaces that employ African-centered education are among many forms to assist communities of color around youth development issues (Loyd & Williams,2017).

Often these spaces are associated with cultural properties that encompass the mission, vision, and overall plan of the organization. One can assume that all “African-based programs” are alike.

However, its framework varies based on the dimensions of culture, including values, norms, and

37 institutional settings that must be attended to address what emerges from the cultural and social work they do for African descent youth. Within each space, one can allude to those different meanings, beliefs, ideologies, practices, values, and myths that serve as narratives that shape the public’s perception of a situation or group and how individuals make meaning of their social position. More importantly, it also frames how we think about the community at large, public policies, and social and political issues (Young, 2010). Therefore, its intended outcomes are fluid based on social constructs that position each organization uniquely to meet the needs at that current time.

Overall, African-centered education's intended outcomes are to move away from a formalized structured Eurocentric way of teaching and learning. To see more African descent students thrive, alternative education programs and schools allow for culturally relevant teachings that center African and Black experiences. These schools and programs allow students to connect to their culture and build a strong sense of community. This is essential and inspiring; however, it is critical that students of African descent can thrive within the conventional school system. However, educational institutions have proven to fail at providing equitable and inclusive education to everyone. In efforts to continue to reshape the curriculum to reflect better the diversity of the student population, their histories, and identities, there is still a fight to dismantle systemic racism in its many manifestations, including in the school curriculum. White supremacy within schools manifests beyond a classroom's walls, contributing to a world filled with racism and inequality. It is easier to learn inclusion and diversity than to unlearn White supremacy. Decentering a Eurocentric curriculum will benefit students by teaching us to celebrate our differences and commonalities. As civil rights activist and author Audre Lorde said, “it is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate

38 those differences.” African pedagogy rejects the narrative that puts white racism at the center of

Black history and ontology —from degradation to freedom—as inaccurate and devastating to youth's identity (Merry & New, 2008).

Hilliard (2000) argued that the state of Black education could not be separated from

African people's experience. Normalized Eurocentric education's core values omit, reframe, misrepresent, and disconnect people of African descent from their contributions to the world. In the United States and globally, such historical narratives become controlled through hegemonic systems like education, dehumanizing at its core (Akoto, 1994; Hilliard, 2000, 2001).

Afrocentric schools provide the necessary conduit to eradicate destructive misconceptions for

African descent children (Akoto, 1994; Gill, 1991; Hamilton, 1968; Hilliard, 2006; Lee, 1992;

Marks & Tonso, 2006; Murrell, 1999; Murrell & Murrell, 2002). Asante (1980, 1998) asserts that Eurocentric thought and approaches are privileged over other perspectives, reframing people of African descent as captives who were shipped and transported across the ocean, and that’s where their history begins. To shift the narrative by gaining a deeper understanding to develop and teach Black histories that recognize Black people’s humanity, African pedagogical practices allow us to reimagine the interpretation of the experiences of people of African descent by opening new opportunities to gain a better understanding of how various African traditions were incorporated into the foundations of Afrocentric education. It seeks alternative principles that effectively explore Black people’s humanity and dismantle the white epistemic historical logic that has long dominated the educational system (King, 2020). According to King (2020), White epistemic logic is the rationalization of Black historical experiences and knowing/doing through traditional Western European perspectives. With this understanding, the concept allows Black agency in history to be partnered with whiteness or narratives that highlight Black historical

39 actors who appease whiteness, situating history as just that: history, not the multiple histories that help develop a historical consciousness. When Black history is viewed through white epistemic lenses, we truly do not understand the Black experience because it is the white experience and perspectives defining Blackness.

Within an Afrocentric paradigm, an organizing principle for independent education is the contributions from community, societal and global levels (Schiele, 1996). While it speaks to the unique contributions, strengths, and capacity of African people throughout the Diaspora, it also highlights humanity's importance (Bent-Goodley, 2005). It reinforces the need to address the human condition and be committed to people's development (Harvell, 2010). Doing this provides a worldview that is inclusive of each country on the continent of Africa while simultaneously highlighting what it means to be a part of the African Diaspora, which can truly be explored in independent educational spaces. The historical and cultural significance of African-centered educational principles and practices allows us to understand further and appreciate the intersections between cultural nationalism, education, and institution-building that is African- derived life and culture among people of African descent domiciled in New York City in particular (Konadu, 2009).

African Centered Pedagogy

African-centered pedagogy is an educational tool providing for the intergenerational transmission of African-based values, beliefs, traditions, customs, rituals, and sensibilities and the knowledge of why these things must be sustained. Unlike a Eurocentric approach to education in which schools and teachers reproduce social inequalities by promoting certain forms of class-specific cultural knowledge (Jennings, Lynn,2005). Essentially, these practices are designed to develop identity, community, engagement, participation, practice, and meaning from

40 an African American perspective (Murrell, 2012). African-centered pedagogy acknowledges

African spirituality as an essential aspect of our uniqueness as a people and makes it an instrument of liberation (Ani, 1994; Anwisye, 1993; Clarke, 1991; Richards, 1989). Exploring

African-centered pedagogy and its cultural foundation, the centrality of the context is important because of culture transmission from one generation to the next. Shared social experience to deal with similar forms of oppression across the cultural identity. In this case, culture helps develop an identity that pushes back against white supremacy and Eurocentrism. This is done by centering African cultural traditions, values, and practices as part of youth's educational experiences. Allowing youth to explore Africa's vastness and the varied and diversity of people who derive from the continent. The integration of educational spaces offers much more than teaching and learning criteria; it offers a road, a mixture of countries with various tribes that each have their unique characteristic from the continent of Africa.

African Culture and Education

Through their beliefs, explanations, perceptions, and values, culturally diverse societies shape and are shaped by the young people who populate them. For many of the very outlined in the literature review, I maintain that this research is especially prudent for African descent children. African-centered education is defined as centering the African American child in the curriculum as a subject rather than an object, which allows for an inclusionary process, which gives equal representation to all cultural groups rather than one over the other (Khepera,

2007). With this understanding, education that centers on African culture are often seen as the total of the peculiarities shared by a people. People's practices can be seen as part of their culture

(Fafunwa (1974). Within this context, this practice of education is rooted in African cultural knowledge systems, and the development of its characteristics features the educating youth on

41 the cultural belief that embodies art, morals, law, customs, or any other capabilities and habits acquired by being a member of the community (Breidlid, 2009).

In pre-colonial Africa, the cultural aspects of education emphasize accomplishing productive tasks that a child and or adolescent familiarize themselves with adult tasks and responsibilities initiated into their future lives' different social aspects (Moumouni 1968). For instance, the young girl, by assisting the mother to maintain the inner workings of the family from keeping the day-to-day operations in order from cooking certain dishes and going to the market to negotiate from trading, buying, and selling, soon learns how to be both a good home keeper and an astute trader, independent of her mother. The little boy who starts by assisting his father to farm the family plot of land and who goes hunting for grasscutters and other smaller animals soon learns how to farm a sizable plot of land all by himself and how to hunt for the bigger game (Moumouni 1968). Precolonial African education, therefore, involves the child being a part of a solid and often complex relationship—aimed at imparting knowledge—with the members of his community (Moumouni 1968). Education in African culture is not distinct from life itself (Moumouni 1968). There is minimal emphasis on abstract learning or formalism as distinct from the day-to-day situations that individuals encounter. In this informal manner, the basic foundation of societal values, knowledge, and culture are transmitted to the child. .

Although the culture of African education provides a foundation for functioning within a community; it also places youth at the forefront of the future as they are responsible for sustaining the future of the village/community’s norms, beliefs, traditions, and values. As the patterns of the way of life are taught and shared amongst a particular group of people, it is theirs to claim and share as part of their origins.

42

In discussing African culture and practices, I do not presuppose that all African societies have the same explanations for events, the same language, and the same expression methods.

Rather, there are underlying similarities shared by many African countries. In the United States, many people who show the relevance of African culture and its practices maintain these values for multiple reasons (Idang, 2015).To define African culture in all its vastness and dimensions, one must take time to examine their characteristics and their relationship to their environments

(Cole, 1998). Boykin (1997) describes ways in which African Americans have unintentionally retained elements of their ancestral African worldview, which provides a foundation of practices from the past that was taught with the idea of sustaining the culture of a community.

Sustaining such practices came with its difficulties. This is largely part due to African descendants living in isolated communities and passing down cultural traditions from their tribe/communities across generations. In some cases, this created a new form of identity that meshed multiple traditions and customs together. This results from millions of Africans who have been forcibly removed from their homes to be victims of the devastating effects of slavery, such as the dehumanization of African people and the tearing away of their cultural traditions, practices, and forms of spirituality. This constant and continuous displacement becomes a shared and collective experience of origin related to the United States. As people of African descent are minoritized and physically displaced through redlining and denial of various goods and services federal government agencies and local governments, Africans begin to push back by creating their support systems to maintain a lifestyle created by them to fit their educational, spiritual, and economic needs (Rothsteinn, 2017). Subsequently, you will find an intentional method to incorporating African culture into African Americans’ lives where informal and formal ways on African language, dress, music, work, arts, and spirituality. It also includes a

43 people's social norms, taboos, and practices to be understood as beliefs expressed in a way that connects with ethics and .

In Brooklyn, New York, a culture exists within the nexus of people who share a lived experience of oppression and discrimination. They attempt to capture the exhaustive nature of evolving and sustaining a sense of belonging within the challenges of living in their environment. In some cases, this act gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic, and religious norms, thus distinguishing them from their neighbors. It includes everything that makes them distinct from any other group of people, for instance, their greeting habits, dressing, social norms and taboos, food, songs and dance patterns, rites of passages from birth, through marriage to death, traditional occupations, religious as well as philosophical beliefs (Aziza, 2001pg. 31). Culture is passed on from generation to generation. The acquisition of culture is a result of the socialization process. Explaining how culture is passed on as a generational heritage, Fafunwa (1974, pg. 48) writes that:

The child just grows into and within the cultural heritage of their people. They absorb it.

Culture, in traditional society, is not taught; it is caught. The child observes, imbibes, and

mimics the action of his elders and siblings. They watch the naming ceremonies, religious

services, marriage rituals, funeral obsequies. They witness the coronation of a king or chief,

the annual yam festival, the annual dance, and acrobatic displays of guilds and age groups

or his relations in the activities. The child in a traditional society cannot escape their

cultural and physical environments.

It is through education that ‘‘we learn about our cultural heritage and our values, and it is how we transmit all forms of knowledge through generations (Chilesa et al., 2003, p. 4), with a deep-rooted connection between an education process in mind which is deeply rooted in the

44 epistemological reality of the local people. Even though there are as many definitions of culture, there are many ways that education is used as a tool to embody how people see themselves and what the people think of themselves and the universe in which they live - their world view and how they organize their lives to ensure their survival Etuk (2002, pg. 13). Despite their various cultural references, many African teaching and learning systems share some dominant belief systems traits. They have similar values that mark them out from other peoples of the world.

While some practices are universal, each local or regional area has its unique element. Together with their value systems and beliefs, traditional African societies' cultures are close, even though they vary slightly from one another. These slight variations only exist when we compare an

African culture with others. Certainly, African cultures differ vastly from the cultures of other regions or continents. However, there are sufficient similarities such as languages, modes of dressing, eating, dancing, and even greeting habits to justify our usage of the term "African culture." Here we would be sure to find a world of differences and diversity in beliefs, values, and culture generally. However, the literature is limited in trying to grasp a deeper understanding of African culture and education.

When establishing formal education in the United States, there are no adequate references to the indigenous education that Africans already had or to the depth of the ancestral opinions that influenced African thinking within educational spaces. Even at present, researchers interested in indigenous culture and education have made small references in assessing change to how African values have survived or the extent to which these values had continued to influence education at different points in time. It is important that as we approach this review of the literature, we must remind ourselves that much of the literature on African culture and education can be ideologically traced back to the emergence of “knowledge” about indigenous peoples in

45 the context of European imperialism and expansion. In brief, African culture and education were often judged in European contexts and not in terms of their own, creating a literature gap

(Mkabela, 2005).

These traditional educational practices passed from one generation to another are usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals. They have, to some extent, been the basis for sustainable development in agriculture, food preparation, health care, conservation, and other sectors for many centuries (Omolewa, 2007). This mode of education has by and large been used as a way of acquiring lifelong learning that can be the perceiving and experiencing time; for instance,

African notions of time are based on the beginnings and endings of social and environmental experiences. At the same time, dominant U.S. cultural norms use reference points such as the clock to keep time. African orientation to chronological factors provides a more non-linear understanding of time than the more linear conceptualization of mainstream American culture, just like rhythm refers to a call and response relationship with one’s environment. The process includes synchronicity between self and the environment.

Early educational practices in African traditions are the oral expression that is the preferred means of exchanging social and historical information and expressing a social connection. This practice can be seen in drum circles, talking circles, peacemaking circles, or healing circles, as they are variously called, which are deeply rooted in traditional African practices.

To fully grasp and explore African culture and education in the context of the United

States can invite various practices and many traditions that are integrated to generate an educational experience in the present day to connect to the African diaspora. This experience implies a form of shared racial identity constituted historically through social experiences. This

46 representation of African culture gathers the historical practices from the imagery of both old and the new worlds. Within it, education becomes more than a complex social and cultural experience that communities create combining racial, ethnic, national, continental, transnational of belonging, displacement, and recreation, constructed and conceived at multiple progressive and spatial scales, at different moments and distances from what people of African descent call

“homeland” (Zeleza, 2005).

African Culture as an Integrated System.

African culture as an integrated system embodies different practices intertwined and closely related to one another. Such practices that manifest in African culture are not limited to social and moral values, religious values, political values, aesthetic and economic values. This system is to be understood as the way of life of a people. Therefore, it is important to examine some of the challenges of defining African culture with a largely influenced system and transformed by the colonial experience, religion, customs, languages, and penetration by outside forces, including current globalization efforts (Omolewa, 2007). Despite these experiences, there is still preservation of indigenous knowledge that has endured the processes to ensure a sustainable future for the African people. Within this context, specifically in New York City,

African cultural shifts bring a significant alteration or marked departure from what existed before. The importance of discovery in culture lies in its use and or when it generates certain challenges to the people, which challenges the culture and shifts it in multiple directions that may look and sound different. Yet, it remains “Black” and influenced by African traditions across the continent.

Although Africans do not have the same and equal educational experience in traditional ways of knowing, it would not be out of place to describe the basic characteristic of traditional

47 education in Africa as that which is intimately integrated with the social, cultural, political, occupational, artistic, religious, and recreational life of the people. It is usually stored in people's memories and activities and expressed in stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, dances, myths, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local language and taxonomy, agricultural practices, equipment, materials, plant species, and animal breeds (Grenier 1998, p. 2) Over time, people of African descent around the world have preserved distinctive understandings, rooted in

African cultural experience, that guides their relations among human, non-human, and other- than-human beings within the context of community. These understandings and relations constitute a system that can broadly be identified as integrated indigenous knowledge. Integrated

African indigenous knowledge in the United States can be seen through ritualistic preservation through the past's music and social practices into the new world. However, within this integrated system, there are missing patterns or practices within a way of life that is shared by a particular group of people that claim to share a single origin or descent because of the impact of the transatlantic slave trade where Black people who were brought to the United States were stripped of their names, culture, language, culture, religion, and taken away from the history of themselves. Bello (1991) sees it as the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenge of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic, and religious norms, thus distinguishing a people from their neighbors. Therefore, integrating various aspects of African culture serves to empower people by embodying a holistic configuration of practices that shape their identity within their community in a particular way (González, 2005). This can be seen through traditional daily practices such as prayer, meaningful interaction with peers and elders, and rituals that consist of daily developmental practices such as ancestral recognition, the acknowledgment of the

48 connectedness with all things living, and engaging in meaning-making, deep reflection, and of their experiences in the context of solving problems and engaging in collective works of leadership and social change (Harper, 2009).

Traditional African education is usually generated within the communities that embrace the culture and practices of the community. It is based on practical common sense, on teachings and experience, and it is holistic - it cannot be categorized and cannot be separated from the people involved in it because, essentially, it is a way of life. Its efforts are made to ensure that every person develops a set of skills. In this process, provisions are made for learning. They can be viewed as a cyclical process where traditions are passed down from generation to generation, continuing the educational process by enhancing its practices into modern times in community spaces through cultural/traditional exchange. Today, this diffusion entails intentional borrowing of cultural traits from other societies and regions on the continent with which the beneficiary embraces cultural traits that may be similar and integrate them into the system, making it a stronger society of cultural practice to preserve a nation of ideals, cultural traditions and ways of knowing. Idang (2009) argues that African culture is encompassed and defined by its history and how people capture and retain the practice of their values and spirituality. In many ways retracing history and the exchange of traditional practices have been lost through oppressive tactics that subjugated African descent people. Hence, in the United States, African culture is integrated in a peculiar way of life, approaching issues, values, and that create a specific larger African culture celebration. In examining some of the values that characterize the

African culture, these values are inextricably bound together. They are to be comprehended in their totality as African cultural practices as an integrated system that cannot be separated. This integrated system can be seen through the cultural practice of the circle.

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Foundations of African Centered Pedagogy

Across the literature, I have discovered numerous discussions of “liberatory” or liberation pedagogies (Freire, 2018; Gordon, 1993), “emancipatory” pedagogy (Arce, 2004; Murrell, 1997;

Swartz, 1996), and most commonly, “critical pedagogy” (Giroux, Ball, 2000; Ellsworth, 1989;

Jennings & Lynn, 2005). Despite the various definitions, my findings are that each theoretical framework is not exclusively distinct. Rather, they converge along central dimensions by sharing logic and a particular set of ideas, such as fighting to dismantle systemic forms of oppression, hegemony, and dehumanizing experience. Most scholars present an argument that highlights the school system's oppressive dynamics and how it plays an active role in producing and sustaining inequities. As they continue, all education is political, making critical and emancipatory pedagogy necessary to take the stance of being -oriented, anti-oppressive, and anti- hegemonic.

Teachers are regarded as transformative intellectuals; all students hold viable intellectual and cultural resources allowing education to become a freeing and empowering practice.

Education should provide teachers and students with the tools to critically examine their world and pursue political and economic well-being; however, in most traditional school settings, that does not allow the social, cultural, and historical context of the Black experience. In some cases, children are disconnected between their African American cultural background as it is omitted in contemporary educational practice. Such Eurocentric practices erase the backgrounds, knowledge, and histories of people of color. This systemic form of racism creates hegemonic frames that remove African cultural knowledge, ideals, values, and history and places them as inferior or inadequate.

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As it relates to African pedagogy, whiteness does not drive African descent people's historical narratives; it is dismantling white epistemic logic, removing the centering of the oppressor’s historical lens, and lifting the Black perspective voices. To be clear, I am not arguing for an essentialization of African culture and Blackness; Blackness and Black people are complex and multifaceted, but I am interested in the historical narratives that throw away the

Eurocentric ways we think about Black people throughout history. If we can only understand

Black history by constructing Eurocentric interpretations, we have begun our inquiry in a foreign land that would be impossible to understand the origins of present-day lived experiences.

The concepts of healing and spirituality have remained crucial to generating agency and empowerment for African descent people, especially in their efforts to retrace their roots to the diaspora. Spirituality and healing have been consistently deployed to fight against systemic oppression, and it has pervaded and continues to persist in the lives of people of African descent.

These tools are grounded in the ways people of African descent across the diaspora have historically and in contemporary times have combat oppression. At the center of this discussion is spirituality as it presents the grounds for interdependence and interconnectedness within ethics of resistance, leading to liberation. Some key concepts such as “the circle” is one physical attribute that is also used to facilitate participation in the affairs of nations and defining (or redefining) reality on our terms, in our own time, and in our interests (Karenga, 1980). Within this framework, it prepares people of African descent "for self-reliance, nation maintenance, and nation management in every regard" (Clarke, 1991, p. 62); emphasizes the fundamental relationship between the strength of families and the strength of the (Black /African) nation. It offers guidance in terms of our responsibilities and obligations to egalitarianism and human dignity. It affords a way of knowing that helps us learn to become human. In doing so, it offers

51 an alternate frame of reference for dealing with the multitude of economic, political, and ecological crises devastating the vulnerable and marginalized.

Incorporating such traditional practices and concepts offers possibilities for resistance to the various forms of symbolic violence that manifest in many material and psychological violence depicted through various forms of media. It offers democratic hope against political negativities such as ideological violence in neoliberal economic globalization and militarization.

It does so with a heartfulness and collective spirituality with knowledge of self. Self-knowledge is rooted in “being centered in oneself, one's own experience, one's history to produce a complete individual, a lifelong learner who is cultured, respectful, integrated, sensitive and responsive to the needs of the family and neighbors (Verharen, 1995; Nikiema, 2009; Omolewa, 2007). The idea of aware of the cultural self is a process that connects a person spiritually to others within a culture, which connects them to the community. Furthermore, within the concept of self-knowledge, the context of one's connection with culture connects one with others which differs from Eurocentric concepts of self-reliance and individualism.

Cultural Nationalism and Social Movements’ Influence on African Centered Pedagogy

As an ideology or philosophy, black cultural nationalism is one of the oldest and most enduring traditions in American political thought. Black nationalists advocate for Black self- determination, racial solidarity and group self-reliance, various forms of voluntary racial separation, and pride in African descent's historic achievements. Its foundations can be traced back to the early 1900s during the pan-Africa movement where educators and activists such as

Edward Wilmot Blyden documented a shift in the narrative in the way Eurocentric perception among Africans in his 1908 book titled African Life and Customs, which originated as a series of articles in the Weekly News (Odamtten, 2019). He proposed that Africans were

52 beginning to be seen simply as different and not as inferior because of English writers who traveled and studied in Africa. Such an enlightened view was fundamental to refute prevailing ideas among Western peoples about African cultures and Africans. This exchange of ideas between Blyden and many other scholars embodied the fundamental concepts of Afrocentrism.

Although many believe that is the initial driving force behind African- centered learning, there is a culmination of a social, cultural, and artistic movement that contributed to the Black educational experience in the United States. During the early 20th century, the , a cultural and political movement in New York City, many writers and historians gathered in major cities. They began to work on documenting Africans' achievements throughout history. They also began to set up institutions to support scholarly work in African American history and literature, such as the American Negro Academy (now the

Black Academy of Letters and Arts), founded in Washington, DC, in 1874. Leaders included

Arthur Schomburg, who devoted his life to collecting literature, art, slave narratives, and other

African diaspora artifacts. In 1911, along with , he founded the Negro

Society for Historical Research in Yonkers, New York. The value of Schomburg's collection was recognized as It became the basis of what is now called the Schomburg Center for Research in

Black Culture, based in Harlem, New York. Schomburg published an essay, "The Negro Digs

Up His Past," in an issue of the 1925 Survey Graphic devoted to Harlem's intellectual life. This form of literature and many other articles had widespread distribution and influence, as he detailed the achievements of people of African descent.

Social movements throughout Black history were not mainstream. For instance, scholars like Hubert Henry Harrison used his intellectual gifts in street lectures and political activism, influencing early generations of Black Socialists and Black Nationalists. Also, many of the

53 activities in the 1960s and 70s were grounded in concepts brought to the world by Dr. Carter G.

Woodson, the founder of Negro History Week (now Black History Month), who also co-founded the Association for the Study of African and History in 1915, as well as The

Journal of Negro History, so that scholars of black history could be supported and find venues for their work. Some Afrocentrists even claimed that The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) by

Carter G. Woodson was one of their foundational texts. Woodson critiqued African Americans' education as "miseducation" because he held that it denigrated the black while glorifying the whites. For many early Afrocentrists, the goal was to break what they saw as a vicious cycle of the reproduction of black self-abnegation. Other scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois brought forth concepts such as "" and a sense of "always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity (Olaniyan, 2009). W. E. B. Du Bois researched West African cultures and attempted to construct a pan-Africanist value system based on West African traditions. In the 1950s, Du Bois even envisioned producing an to chronicle Africa's history and cultures with Ghanaian president (Rose, 2017). Du Bois died before being able to complete his work. Du Bois's approach is evident in work by in the 1950s and

1960s. Du Bois inspired several authors, including Drusilla Dunjee Houston. After reading his work The Negro (1915), Houston embarked upon writing her Wonderful Ethiopians of the

Ancient Cushite Empire (1926). The book was a compilation of evidence related to Cush and

Ethiopia's historic origins and assessed their influences on Greece. I mention the name of these scholars and activists to trace the journey of Afrocentric education within the United States and how cultural nationalism sought the same goal of advancing the development of Black

54 consciousness through the various strands of African-centered concepts and views that were brought together into an integral form in contemporary educational methods.

The 1960s and 1970s were heightened and historical times of social and political unrest in the United States that birth new forms of Black Nationalism, Black Power, and the Black Arts

Movements, which all connect and are driven to a degree to Africa. Afrocentric scholars and

Black youth also challenged Eurocentric ideas in academia. Cheikh Anta Diop's work became very influential in his literature by documenting histories related to Africa, and the diaspora gradually incorporated a more African perspective for the world. Since that time, Afrocentrists have increasingly seen African peoples as the makers and shapers of their histories (Appiah,

Gates, 2005).

You have all heard of the African Personality, of African democracy, of the African way to socialism, of negritude, and so on. They are all props we have fashioned at different times to help us get on our feet again. Once we are up, we shan't need any of them anymore. But for the moment, it is in the nature of things that we may need to counter racism with what Jean-Paul

Sartre has called an anti-racist racism, to announce not just that we are as good as the next man that we are much better.

—, 1965

In this context, ethnocentric Afrocentrism was not intended to be essential or permanent but was a consciously fashioned strategy of resistance to the Eurocentrism of the time

(Odamtten, 2019). From Achebe's perspective, the “African way” is a tool to counter racism and use it as a deconstructive rebuttal to European ideological racism by constructing and centering the African and Black experience narratives throughout the Diaspora into contemporary times.

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Today, contemporary cultural nationalistic views possess a distinct aesthetic, sense of values, and communal ethos emerging from their contemporary ways of incorporating African pride. For example, Black cultural liberation in which we see today in Black Lives Matter

Movement, was founded by three Black women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal

Tometi, two of whom identify as queer. From the start, the founders of Black Lives Matter have always put LGBTQ voices at the center of the conversation. By design, the movement they started in 2013 has remained organic, grassroots, and diffused into a global movement against the violence against Black men and women, including Sandra Bland, Brianna Taylor, Mike

Brown and Eric Garner, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery. This, along with many other social movements led by people of color, reflects the political maturation of this stage of the movement, which exposes a new form of liberation that combats oppression, exploitation and the strategy formulated on the racial imagination that starts with where we are, but envisions where we could be (Taylor, 2016).

The rich legacy of racial visions for imagining coalitions and thinking beyond the nation and state that was built by black bodies under the guise of white supremacy offers a new history that presents a struggle that advances the contemporary cultural nationalist perspective, providing some original and yet unique contributions to humanity that are constantly challenged on the approach based on various ideological views on what it is to be Black, African, or African

American through intellectual, social and political movements in America. These concepts stem from Afrocentric thought planted in the minds of many who laid the foundation for contemporary practices in liberatory learning. Hence, each dimension of Black political thought and the various splinter groups that brought forth cultural nationalism can be depicted and interpreted differently. The rich history of the struggles that people of African

56 descent advanced during our lifetime was not defined by the closure of a certain identity, cultural or national; they were worldly, heterogenous, insurgent, participatory, and disorderly in ways we are headed once more. Against the exclusion of the Black and Brown faces that built the United

States as both a nation and an empire, yet we are still reminded of the racial threshold that strangles us in the name of true democracy (Singh, 2004).

Contemporary Practices in Community-Based Spaces

The Circle

The African-centered worldview, embodied in the circle, begins with a holistic conception of the human condition that spans the cosmological (an aspect of philosophy that considers the nature and structure of the universe), ontological (the essence of all things), and axiological (an area of philosophy that considers the nature of values and value preferences in a culture). The principles of the African-centered worldview underpinning the circle are as follows: the interconnectedness of all things physical and spiritual, which espouses that we are whole beings with the spiritual nature of human beings; collective as well as individual identities in addition to the collective and inclusive nature of family structure; oneness of mind, body, and spirit; and the value of interpersonal relationships (Akbar 1975; Asante 1987, 1991; Myers 1988;

Schiele 1997). The circle connects various cultural aspects (art, music, spirituality, and science) and integrates them into one system.

The community is the circle and can be seen as an institutional structure that provides a sense of history, tradition, vitality, growth, power, and survival for African descent people. The central idea is that the community can be seen as a circle which is a framework that connects every aspect of the people to the cultural practices informing their worldview. In most African indigenous traditions, community members have a strong affinity with the circle because it

57 symbolizes and resembles many cyclical patterns in the natural world. Some African traditions believe the power of the world works in circles, such as the shape of the world, sun and the moon, the wind as it whirls in circles, birds as they make their nests in circles, and so on. The circle is also a symbol of equity where no one person has an elevated position in a certain circle area. In some African cultures, the circle symbolizes completeness and equality whereby all circle participants’ views must be respected and listened to. The circle systematically gives power to no one and everyone at the same time. Bolman and Deal (2003) acknowledge that circle practices, which can be considered rituals, play a powerful role in bonding a group and imbuing the enterprise with traditions and values that enable people to carry out the organization’s mission. In such circles, songs and pledges are a part of this ritual because they are carefully carried out in a social context with limitless beginnings and endings and well- defined roles for organizational members (Martin 2002; Clarkson & Johnstone, 2011). The significance of this never-ending circle of life is embodied in stories about ancient Africans seeing the circle as a community space, a safe space, and a continuum.

The circle represents the interconnectedness of all people and the process of learning from the past to ensure a brighter future. The drum, a cultural artifact that symbolizes communication, and even the tribal hanging cloth are cultural artifacts. The circle, which is a physical implementation and act of resistance and unity among its participants. In different ways, power is represented, constituted, articulated, and contested through cultural artifacts. Like the drum, tribal and traditional fabric from Africa functions as a compelling political language and a statement that identifies incomparable people in eloquence. Such aspects are intertwined with the circle, which also serves as a powerful arena for colonial ideas, such as white supremacy, to be challenged. The circle's nature is an act of resistance, which serves as a cultural expression

58 method and reveals political and social transformations. The social ontology of the circle related to African centeredness is also grounded in the cosmology of principles and a spiritual connection with a higher sense of awareness. Fu-kiau (2007) presents the idea that the social ontology of the circle is connected with the political institution of community politics where everyone, regardless of role in the community, has the social, political, and economic responsibility to uphold traditional values to survive colonial domination. Ani (1980) and Fu- kiau (2007) suggested that understanding human existence's essential spiritual nature is the most common feature of African people’s worldview. The ancestors are the social source of reference within the circle. Even though they have transitioned, their guidance is the foundation of a community’s social ontology.

The circle is believed to have spiritual powers which have enabled African people’s survival through such tragedies as the American institution of slavery. For instance, ultimately, once an ancestor transitions, they become a spirit and a force of energy generated to support the living. The spiritual and historical memory that reverberates finds expression in the elaborate artistic, creative symbols, icons, dances, songs, tales, music, and objects that harness its energy force. This is a symbolic way of understanding as reflected in the cycle of life, which can be seen as a continuum that is everlasting like the circle. According to Nobles (1998), “spirit is the energy, force or power that is both the inner essence and the outer envelope of human beingness,” and thus “for the African to be human is to be a spirit” (p. 193). These relationships within the circle provide individuals with a sense of purpose and connection with family and community.

Moreover, the maintenance of harmonious social relationships supports positive self- esteem and social competence (Myers 1988). As Schiele (1994) argues, human beings' spiritual

59 interconnectedness is translated socially so that the human being is never an isolated individual but always a member of the community. The circle as a practice continues to be a major part of

African people’s ethos and value system throughout the Diaspora, despite the devastating experience of over 400 years of enslavement and the continuing cultural defamation of African people in Western societies.

The circle's holistic system is nonlinear and forever fluid, acting as a tool of resistance to oppression that can produce counter-knowledge, celebrate the spirit, and foster community through affirmation and sharing, particularly as it pertains to an African people (Richardson,

2018). The circle captures the “commonalities and affinities” of Black people and in some ways imparts a worldview that idealizes a positive, self-sufficient future for one’s people without denying the self-worth and right to self-determination of others (Durden 2007; Lee 1992; Murrell

1999). Meyers (1988) contends that the practices, such as the circle, of an African-centered worldview, include the following values: reality is simultaneously spiritual and material, the highest value is placed on positive interpersonal relationships between men and women, self- knowledge is the basis of all knowledge, and one knows the through symbolic imagery and rhythm that exist within the circle. Rickford (2016) highlights that such identity centered in an

African worldview is an arena for intense political contestation to meaningfully address

Africans’ social realities and cultural heritage in the quest for self-determination. I believe actions of self-determination encompass the circle, which can be expressed within the principle of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu – “I Am Because We Are”

The African cultural concept of Ubuntu is the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term that roughly translates as human kindness:

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“I am because we are.” Ubuntu contributes to an ethic of engagement with one another. Ubuntu, in essence, reflects compassion, reciprocity, dignity, harmony, and humanity in the interest of building and maintaining community, conforming to standards and expectations of significant others, and placing personal desires below the needs of the society. It is a moral principle of humanness that promotes social responsibility and solidarity, sensitivity, selflessness, devotion to duty, and a vision of a society founded on justice and equality. It provides a lens that helps foreground existing positions of dominance and deficit in discourses in ways that open up opportunities for resisting them. It offers a frame of engaging with the other respectfully and with the world courageously as a form of committed and lived hope. It offers the possibility of dialogue about the nature of transformation and transcendence beyond personal or political paradoxes informed by neoliberalism and neocolonialism (Swanson, 2015).

A disposition of Ubuntu facilitates the exploration of less objectifying ways of being in the world through the inclusion of the self and the self’s role in achieving humble togetherness with each other. It offers the hope of engendering pedagogies of possibility away from dichotomous discourses and forms of inequality and injustice. By confronting the colonizing ways of knowing as an individual, self-righteous pursuit, Ubuntu offers a concept that may be found through “humbleness and togetherness.” Ubuntu, therefore, contributes to decolonizing hegemonic meanings, heralding the opportunity for renewal and personal transformation and thus the possibility of human action to renew the world. Desmond Tutu (1999) mentions how

Ubuntu speaks to the very essence of being human by affirming others through validation and self-assurance that comes with knowing that they belong to a greater whole and are diminished when others are humiliated or maltreated. This humanistic practice is reflected in the principles of Ubuntu in which we can infer that when others are tortured or treated as if they are less than

61 who they are, they lose their sense of belonging to their community and culture by being humiliated and undervalued. In turn, the moral principle of Ubuntu is humanness as a social responsibility. Also, it encompasses solidarity, sensitivity, selflessness, devotion to duty, and a vision of a society founded on justice and equality. The collective quality of Ubuntu reflects compassion, reciprocity, dignity, harmony, and humanity in the interest of building and maintaining community.

The Role of the Circle and Ubuntu in African-Centered Pedagogy

African-centered education ensures that the historical role and function of the customs, traditions, rituals, and ceremonies that have protected and preserved the culture facilitate spiritual expression and provide harmony in various social relations. Also, African-centered education prepares our people to meet their responsibilities as adult community members to sustain the continuity of African culture over successive generations. More importantly, it must be understood and made relevant to the challenges that confront us in our time. People can retrace their ancestral memory and incorporate communal processes such as the circle as a physical and spiritual space in their daily lives, allowing concepts such as Ubuntu to manifest as a guide to creating one’s nation. ACP focuses on the “knowledge and discovery of historical ; through comparison; hypothesizing and testing through debate, trial, and application; through analysis and synthesis; through creative and critical thinking; through problem resolution processes; and through final evaluation and decision making” (Akoto 1992, p. 116). ACP can only be systematically facilitated by people who themselves are consciously engaged in the process of

African-centered personal transformation. It is a process dependent upon human perception and interpretation. These traditions are everyday practices that are embedded in the lives of the people who adopt them. Within them, everyday practices serve as a connection to a heightened

62 sense of knowing and knowledge. Educators are instructed that such practices will unfold daily during “Circle.” The significance of the “Circle” is embodied in stories about ancient Africans seeing the circle as a community space, a safe space, and a continuum. The circle represents the interconnectedness of all people and the process of learning from the past to ensure a brighter future (Clarkson & Johnstone 2011). The circle can also be seen as a source of energy that is so powerful that it has allowed us to withstand confrontation with one another. Moreover, it allows participants to face each other’s lives' realities by expressing, energizing, and revitalizing their cultural awareness. Within the concepts of ACP is an underlying need for survival.

While looking at the world with Africa as its center, there is a need to maintain and uphold traditions. Centering Africa allows the transformation of a person by resistance and redirection of a student toward social change with cultural/political analysis, study, and reconstruction of the world. This is done through teaching strategies that are communal-centered or family-centered because children’s participation is not isolated. Ubuntu is one of many aspects that brings forth the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity toward others (Bangura, 2005). Therefore, the principles of Ubuntu encourage families to work together and to be held accountable for one another’s participation and involvement. What is encouraged is cooperation rather than competition. One of the major tenets of Ubuntu hinges upon its consensus-building (Bangura, 2019). African traditional culture has an almost infinite capacity for the pursuit of consensus and reconciliation. For instance, one of many African styles of democracy operates in the form of lengthy discussion. Everyone gets an equal chance to speak up until some agreement, consensus, or group cohesion is reached. Within this context, the desire to agree or understand one other provides an opportunity to create a community that enforces group solidarity. In essence, Ubuntu requires authentic respect for human and individual rights

63 and related values and an honest appreciation of differences (Bangura, 2005). These activities employ various forms of cultural materials in innovative ways, such as traditional African dances, to provide the basis for determining rhythm and synchrony in a unit. This “blended”

African curriculum opens the door to developing culturally specific understandings of educational ideas, traditional practices, and concepts combined with pedagogical practices to meet the needs of African-based ethnically diverse communities. It can also uncover and focus on various elements and how community members see these elements and their perceptions of these elements' implications for education.

African Centered Pedagogy as Nation Building

African-centered pedagogies allow researchers to examine education and its core values while drawing on its African cultural elements as historically valid in art, music, and literature as educational practices for African descent youth (Asante, 2006). African-centered pedagogy is derived from African-centered education, which serves as how African culture, including the knowledge, attitudes, values, and skills needed to maintain and perpetuate it throughout the nation-building process, is developed and advanced practices. Its aim, therefore, is to build commitment and competency within the present and future generations to support the struggle for liberation and nationhood (Ani, 1994; Anwisye, 1993; Clarke, 1991; Richards, 1989;).

Nation-building can be defined as the conscious and focused application of our people's collective resources, energies, and knowledge to the task of liberating and developing the psychic and physical space that we identify as ours. African-centered pedagogy aims at the organization or systematic expression of African peoples’ will to recover, recreate, and perpetuate their cultural heritage. It enriches the culture and acts to illuminate and inculturation the people whose collective and historical experiences shape and shape it (Akoto, 1994).

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The nature of African centeredness as it relates to nation-building can be broadly defined to include, amongst other things, the student’s relationship to their community and their school and families. This sense of commitment steps away from an individual way of thinking and learning to a more communal learning way. African-centered pedagogies allow educators to enable every student to achieve their maximum potential through self-expression and are constantly challenged to think analytically, critically, and independently (Lomotay, 1992). With values, customs, and traditions as the central part of African-centered pedagogy, children can see themselves in the curriculum. The key intent of this practice is to improve the self-esteem, self- worth, and self-confidence of the child so they will have the coping skills necessary to merge into the broader pluralistic society to deal with and combat racism and some of the things they will confront as a child of African descent (Dent, 1991).

African-centered pedagogy is an educational tool providing for the intergenerational transmission of African-based values, beliefs, traditions, customs, rituals, and sensibilities and the knowledge of why these things must be sustained. Essentially, these practices are designed to develop identity, community, engagement, participation, practice, and meaning from an African

American perspective (Murrell, 2012). African-centered pedagogy acknowledges African spirituality as an essential aspect of our uniqueness as a people and makes it an instrument of liberation (Ani, 1994; Anwisye, 1993; Clarke, 1991; Richards, 1989). The concepts of healing and spirituality have remained crucial to generating agency and empowerment for African descent people, especially in their efforts to retrace their roots to the diaspora. Spirituality and healing have been consistently deployed to fight against systemic oppression, and it has pervaded and continues to persist in the lives of people of African descent. The center of the discussion of spirituality presents interdependence and interconnectedness within resistance ethics, leading to

65 liberation. Within this framework it prepares people of African descent "for self-reliance, nation maintenance, and nation management in every regard" (Clarke, 1991, p. 62); emphasizes the fundamental relationship between the strength of families and the strength of the (Black

/African) nation It offers guidance in terms of our responsibilities and obligations to egalitarianism and human dignity. It affords a way of knowing that helps us learn to become human. In doing so, it offers an alternate frame of reference for dealing with the multitude of economic, political, and ecological crises devastating the vulnerable and marginalized.

The multiple aspects of African-centered pedagogies include a focus on curricula and an emphasis on genuine love, concern, and respect of students, teachers, and parents, which sets it apart from other “critical” traditions (Asante, 1980). It is argued that such pedagogy must not only be liberatory in its intent, but for it to be truly African-centered, it must have nation- building as its goal. More specifically, to build a nation that is independent and self-sufficient.

Afrocentric educators and scholars believe that nation-building constitutes that people of African descent have a sense of agency toward fixing their communities' problems. Placing a strong emphasis on youth, children of African descent must be the catalysts for instilling a sense of agency in the Black community because Afrocentrists believe that previous generations have only been taught how to consume and be dependent on outside entities. Agency eventually leads toward nation-building, which is essential to become self-sustaining. Agency and nation-building involve the intentional and focused attempt to “develop African youth to be specifically trained to develop further and “administrate the state” (that is, control the community ). People of

African descent cannot learn to “administrate the state” if they are not equipped with attitudes that teach them that they should administer and be agents for Black upliftment. Cultural nationalism is the carrier of such a sentiment, which teaches children that people of African

66 descent will and can constitute a nation on its terms. Afrocentric education literature identifies nationalistic community building as a call for African descent people to build institutions that will sustain African life (Bradley, 1978; Hilliard, 1996, 1997, 2002; James, 1954). This involves developing an action perspective that is political to respond to the injustices by learning the root of systemic causes and effects harming the community (Ginwright, 2010).

The nature of African centeredness as it relates to nation-building can be broadly defined to include, amongst other things, the student’s relationship to their community and their school and families. This sense of commitment steps away from an individual way of thinking and learning to a more communal learning way. African-centered pedagogies allow educators to enable every student to achieve their maximum potential through self-expression and are constantly challenged to think analytically, critically, and independently (Lomotay, 1992). With values, customs, and traditions as the central part of African-centered pedagogy, children can see themselves in the curriculum. The key intent of this practice is to improve the self-esteem, self- worth, and self-confidence of the child so they will have the coping skills necessary to merge into the broader pluralistic society to deal with and combat racism and some of the things they will confront as a child of African descent (Dent, 1991).

Misinterpretations of African-Centered Pedagogy

African-centered pedagogy builds on the premise of many forms of pedagogies and can be easily misinterpreted with culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy. Some teaching strategies and approaches most effective in African-centered classrooms can mirror other learning strategies emphasizing the content. However, an African-centered approach is not merely content-based instruction. It is considered an ongoing process of personal transformation not merely limited to curriculum, which can be reduced to regurgitating repetitive practices from

67 single narratives that exclude African descent people (Murrell, 2012). This transformation involves the codification, perpetuation, interpretation, and transmission of a nation’s history and culture, which are the nation's fundamental building blocks and cohesive force. With this understanding, it is important to grasp the between the various forms of pedagogy.

One can easily assume that the African-centered approach is no different from other critical pedagogy forms because of similar attributes. For instance, Villegas (1991, pg. 13) states:

A culturally responsive pedagogy builds on the premise that the way people are expected

to learn may differ across cultures. In order to maximize learning opportunities, teachers

must gain knowledge of the cultures represented in their classrooms, then translate this

knowledge into instructional practice.

Smith’s (1991) definition extends Villegas’ interpretation by noting that student achievement is not the only purpose of a culturally responsive pedagogy. He believes that culturally responsive teaching incorporates the child’s culture into classroom practice to enhance learning. Although culturally responsive pedagogy demands that the teacher view the student as having the unlimited potential to learn in school and beyond (Nobles, 1998). The effectiveness of its praxis relies on the teacher to be equipped with the mastery of the core content and can infuse or immerse the students' culture into the curriculum. Ladson-Billings (1994) affirms, “Teachers of excellence travel a different route to ensure the growth and development of their children” (p.

15). However, marginalized teachers continue to be rerouted when attempting to implement a system that is not aligned with the school system's standards. Also, it negates that not all teachers have the resources or the willingness to do more to attain student achievement due to the oppressive hegemonic school system that controls the instruction curriculum.

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Other theorists make finer distinctions under the guise of culturally responsive pedagogy, critical pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, and emancipatory pedagogy. For example, King (1991) invites this discussion by writing about the concept of emancipatory pedagogy. She believes that emancipatory pedagogy helps students by making them “co-creators of culturally affirming emancipatory learning experiences that oppose and transcend it” (p. 263). Ladson-Billings (1992) notes that culturally relevant pedagogy prepares students to affect change in society, not merely to fit into it. She advocates a pedagogy supporting students’ home and community culture, empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically, and urges collective action grounded in cultural understanding, experiences, and ways of knowing. Paris (2012) explains that culturally sustaining pedagogy describes teaching and learning that seek to perpetuate and foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling and needed response to demographic and social change. This concept takes dynamic cultural and linguistic dexterity as a necessary good and sees the outcome of learning as an additive, rather than subtractive, as remaining whole rather than framed as broken, as critically enriching strengths rather than replacing deficits.

Culturally responsive pedagogy elements prescribe academic excellence, cultural integrity, culturally aware teachers, critical consciousness, community identification, action, and empowerment (Ladson-Billings, 1995). These various definitions share similar attributes and characteristics to African-centered pedagogy.

Although they are informed by the early work of Henry Giroux (2018) and the more refined work of Paulo Freire (1996), critical theorist such as Derrick Bell, and Black feminist scholars such as Audre Lorde bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins, they do not embrace traditional wisdom that acknowledges African culture as an essential instrument for liberation.

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Despite these subtle differences, the African-centered pedagogy does not place its core principles of what is being taught. However, it also focuses on how it is being taught to be independent of

Eurocentric practices completely. What is taught is also incorporated into elements of practice

(Irvine, 2000). African-centered education is about defining reality in “our” own terms, in “our” own time, and in “our” own interest (Karenga,1980). More specifically, African-centered pedagogy produces an idea that contributes to the cultural continuity of children of African descent to foster developing their identity through social practice.

Summary

The centering of elements of traditional African practices, liberation, and nation-building is overall the connection to “one with all.” This includes parents, siblings, the peer group, grandparents, and elders; historical experiences with school; and literacy culturally influenced learning styles and culturally appropriate instructional processes. Other aspects include African proverbs, concepts, and language of instruction; approaches to problem-solving; the impact of social relationships on cognitive performance; indigenous definitions of intelligence; cultural goals of maturity and their influence on participatory learning; and children as social partners in educative processes. Such inclusion and centering of aspects of African culture in itself is an act of resistance that has the potential to become the creative and revolutionary force that allows people of African descent to examine the work of revolutionaries and cultural nationalist like

Harriet Tubman, , , and many other freedom fighters (Akoto, 2005).

This shift in views demands that children of African descent have an opportunity to look at the world through a lens that provides them with a more focused vision and has a wider periphery and more depth than mere textbooks and other curricular materials. ACP encompasses a supportive, understanding transmission of philosophies that creates a sense of commitment to

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African American people (Lomotey, 1992). However, African-centered cultural appreciation and its application to interventions through education are predominantly situated within the context of social and political conflicts due to the impact of African American stigmatization within

American society (Clark & Clark, 1939).

How can one offer a paradigm shift in suggesting that an understanding of African

Americans must focus on ethnic and cultural experiences rooted in an Afrocentric worldview paradigm and critically examine and affirm African cultural values as forming the foundation of

African American identity and culture (Cokley, 2005)? This perspective is viable when considering the challenges of reclaiming one’s cultural ancestry and surviving the transformation process that could either contribute to or harm the development of a nation independent of systemic oppression.

As the ideologies of cultural nationalism in the United States have been either dormant or fragmented over time, their cultural and political thrust is still relevant today. There are just as many, if not more, sociopolitical and cultural issues that call for a movement that is genuine, self-sufficient, and motivated by self-determination. In essence, Black cultural nationalism, nationhood, and nation-building and their synergetic connection with African-descended cultural identity and nationality strongly suggest that cultural nationalism is concerned with culture and the politics of life and living in realistic, humanizing, and spiritual terms. However, in building a nation, cultural nationalism is flawed by a largely ahistorical view of Black nationalism. The conflicting views of organizations from Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement

Association in the 1920s to the Nation of Islam in the 1950s and 1960s, cultural nationalism has engaged in institution building in the face of racial oppression and constructive efforts at identity formation and black community building. Rejecting integration as a goal, especially in light of

71 sustained campaigns of violence against Blacks, cultural and Black-nationalist organizations sought to build parallel institutions to meet people of color's basic needs; education and economic development formed the cornerstones of these programs. Armed resistance, more aptly termed armed self-defense, occurred to create a sense of security and belonging for people of color under oppressive circumstances–not retaliatory violence or unprovoked attacks against whites or police, as it is often erroneously portrayed.

Today, views on cultural nationalism can be seen as an anti-white, separatist ideology that grew out of the of the 1960s and posits Blacks' withdrawal from the language, culture, values, and economy of white America. In the wake of the violent assaults by police over the years, the well-documented epidemic of the need for communities of color to embrace a nation-building method amid political rhetoric that glosses over the crux of the problem. Ironically, the continued carnage still being visited on Black and brown bodies in the streets has inspired peaceful demonstrations for change, keeping our collective gaze focused on ways to constructively elevate life, end the violence, and repair our democracy. Nobles (1998) states that an African-centered identity is based on the premise that African Americans are searching back in time to uncover ancient practices and re-imagine them through application in the present day, which is an intentional process called “Re-.” A racial imagination like that held by cultural nationalists, whose thoughts and practice are rooted in the cultural image and interest of African people, is ever needed to liberate the mind to form a nation that represents and reflects the life experiences, history, and traditions of African people as the center of analysis.

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CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY

Introduction

The purpose of this case study is to explore, examine and understand the experiences of alumni who participated in a rite of passage (ROP) program at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy in

Brooklyn, New York. The overarching question that guides this study is: How does an African- centered rites of passage program influence the lives of participants who graduated from a culturally community-based organization in New York? This chapter provides the research sample, the case, the methodology, and the method. Lastly, I will provide the analysis, synthesis, and limitations of the study. This study's approach is qualitative. I believe it is the most appropriate method due to interpretive techniques that seek to describe, decode, translate, and come to terms with the meaning of the occurring phenomena (Merriam, 2009). Essentially, a qualitative researcher gives the ability to understand the meaning people have constructed, that is, how people make sense of their world and the experiences they have in the world (Merriam,

2009).

In this study, I use qualitative case study methodology to understand students’ perceptions and experience of culturally relevant educational and artistic practices through an

African-centered approach. Many scholars believe the ultimate goal of African-centered education is to transform society at large; therefore, it is important to understand its vision, mission, and values in informing and influencing young learners. The purpose is to gain an in- depth understanding of the strategies and practices that encourage participants to develop their unique sense of capabilities and potential through a culturally humanizing process. Moreover, I highlight the programs’ goals, mission, and values and how they are structured to understand the relationship between sociopolitical and cultural forces that affect their everyday lived

73 experiences from the past and present. Each contextual space is relevant to the study; however, I will center the program as the foundation of my inquiry and how each additional context contributes as an abounding system in this case study.

The Case: Rites of Passage Program (ROP)

This section will provide a brief description of the site to provide the overall context and situate the study participants. I will go into further detail about the site in chapter 4. The participants examined in this case are all graduates of the ROP program of the Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural

Arts Academy. Each alumnus has participated in multiple programs in the organization.

However, for this study's purpose, I will give an in-depth view of the ROP program and its impact and outcomes for African descent children. Therefore, I will be focusing primarily on the participants' experiences in the ROP program at Ilé-Ifẹ̀.

Brief Description about the Site

In examining the historical and cultural significance of African centeredness in the

United States, there is an underlying thought that furthers our understanding of the intersecting concepts between African culture, tradition, community, education, and the institutions derived from the influx of African cultural nationalism. The prospect of African-centered schools historically posed philosophical and ideological implications for community-based organizations and the larger African-centered Education Movement. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is a product of this movement.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy is dedicated to supporting the creative, educational, and vocational development of African descent youth in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and surrounding communities. Since its founding in 1989, Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s work has grown to encompass six integrated programs that serve over 3000 students annually through on-site academic and literacy training,

74 personal skills development, community involvement, cultural heritage classes, and socially responsible artmaking, and an additional 5,000 youth and families throughout the community through our affiliated programming and public performances. The organization’s name comes from the West African Yoruba word "Ilé-Ifẹ̀” (pseudonym) which means "love is enough for joy," and captures Ilé-Ifẹ̀'s nurturing approach to empowering youth and redefining community development.

Maintaining community and African-centered education indicates that several factors contributed to developing programmatic approaches to transforming society (Singh, 2004). In particular, the Black Power cultural movements of the 1970s draw on the black cultural nationalist ideology that permeated the , and the organizational U.S. wing of the Black Power Movement -whose cultural nationalism coupled with revolutionary nationalism espoused by the Black Panthers worked in from the premise that black people make up a cultural nation. Ilé-Ifẹ̀, like many other African-centered community-based spaces, aimed to reconstruct prevailing ideas about race and society, replacing them with more positive ones better suited to the interests and needs of black people.

Many conferences that highlighted the need for such spaces echoed this idea, including the California Association for Afro-American Education and Nairobi College Workshop (August

1970), and the first Congress of Afrikan Peoples (September 1970), and the first New York City

Afrikan-American Teachers Convention (April 1972). Within these spaces, several organizations for independent African-centered schools and individuals advocate for African-centered education in their communities. Specifically, surrounding the context and community in

Brooklyn, New York, the most telling case of community control was the Ocean Hill-

Brownsville demonstration movement in Brooklyn, New York.

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To provide context for the foundation of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is important because it stems back to the central issues of decision-making powers, accountability, and the political and cultural context of schooling and education. Moreover, it is still foremost for many African descendants and community activists to bring tension amongst parents and the educational system in New York

City. Historically, the power struggles of 1960 suggest that the tension is parallel to the beginnings of the need to control independent educational institutions. Making Brooklyn the focus on African-centered curricula has occurred partly because parents and educators are looking for new ways to improve African American children's education.

The Ocean Hill-Brownsville School in New York City was a controversy of the 1960s.

This conflict, which ensued when African American parents and other community members sought local control of the public schools in their neighborhoods, was, in part, the outcry of

African Americans for culturally relevant curricula for their children (Weusi, 1973). Rarely is it mentioned in the current dialogue that largely out of such controversies across the country grew a network of independent, African-centered preschools, elementary schools, and high schools that to this day address these issues. For instance, the Oceanhill-Brownsville community group and its movement and many other preceding occurrences spawned the emergence of Uhuru Sasa

School and the Council of Independent Black Institutions. The preceding institutions serve as ideological and philosophical models for Ilé-Ifẹ̀. However, the disenfranchisement of African

American children in public schools in the United States has been persistent, pervasive, and disproportionate (Lomotey, 1990). Yet, quality education has always been a priority for African

American people (Woodson, 1933, 1969).

As I examine Ilé-Ifẹ̀ as a case, it is essential to use a contextually oriented approach to this study because it allows us to deeply understand the experiences of the people in the

76 community, specifically the children who are not socialized only in school, but moreover, by their families and the educational experiences as they develop in their cultural communities

(Rogoff, 2003). Within this frame, traditions and customs are learned, exchanged, and consulted with indigenous knowledge holders within their communities. Such learning methods become educational tools that become cultural practices for knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption within African-centered programs.

The overarching idea that connects the principles of African-centeredness and the concepts of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is connecting its cultural heritage to the community. Moreover, it is important to highlight how the community is situated and how it alienates African descent people from their cultural roots, in this case, educational discourses, policy development, and traditional

Eurocentric educational practices. The principles of African-centered education are not isolated from community and traditions and customs. However, educational traditions rooted in indigenous African institutions, knowledge systems, and teaching and learning techniques are isolated and often not accepted into traditional educational spaces. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is situated in between the history, and various tensions which articulate the complexity of African-centered culture into a modern educational system can be very difficult considering the social and political dynamics for teachers and students alike who have diverse needs, problems, and backgrounds, specifically in Brooklyn, New York (Donald et al., 2000).

Theoretical Foundations of Ilé-Ifẹ̀

The theoretical underpinnings and organizational praxis of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ reflect an African- centered community development model that places art and culture at the strategic center. It bears a strong kinship to and draws on the philosophy of Kawaida, enunciated by Maulana

Karenga (1997), an ethos that gives rise to the core values of . Kawaida is “a cultural

77 nationalist philosophy that argues that the key challenge in Black people’s life is the challenge of culture and that what Africans must do is to discover and bring forth the best of their culture, both ancient and current and use it as a foundation to bring into being models of human excellence and possibilities to enrich and expand [their] lives.” Ilé-Ifẹ̀ has become a leader in conducting research based on African Diaspora arts and culture programs and community development. These programs—and Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s strength—are rooted in long-standing and interconnected community ties with families and their children, as well as growing connections with an international community of elders throughout Africa and the Diaspora.

The focus of many programs and organizations rooted in artistic development and exposure is often solely on the child. The key to creating true community transformation is using the significant education work that an organization achieves with youths as a doorway to parents and the broader community. For this study, I will primarily focus on the Rites of Passage program due to its intricate pedagogy and practice of traditional African cultures, specifically how the African concepts and philosophical principles of development are formatted for youth pre-adolescence to early adulthood.

More importantly, the guiding principles of African centeredness related to the Rites of

Passage program are presented in tradition, customs, and conformity for action to implement change in a community. In essence, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ensures that these principles promote social responsibility to one another through communalism. These principles are framed in educational practices related to and shaped the educational environment, as the local context deeply influences every facet of education. In this case, the principle of tradition, customs, and conformity for action is rooted in the history of people of African descent during the struggles of community control of school within the inner city of Brooklyn, New York.

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What distinguishes Ilé-Ifẹ̀ from many organizations that provide comprehensive community development services is a central focus on the holistic nurturing of members through the arts, the insistence on family and community inclusion and support, and the research- grounded embrace of time-honored African philosophical modalities on which the journey is based. Specifically, the Rites of Passage program works to develop and empower youth to determine how they will live their lives as an individual, as an individual in the family, as a family in the community, and as a community in the world these pieces fit together. This process starts with knowledge of self as they build and continue to self themselves a part of a larger community and a history that predates enslavement. By emphasizing the importance of learning from the past and African history to build the future, it helps create a sense of relevance and a code of conduct for behavior that youth can apply to school, family, and community. As a result, the intended outcomes are that youth begin to feel internally and collectively powerful. The organization’s philosophy of learning positions youths and parents alongside familial and tutelary elders as the authors and agents of their own personal, family, and community change.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s mission continues to embrace the families and larger community, always directing all efforts back to the whole and reinforcing the concept of ubuntu, that individuals are whole only with each other. By preparing community members for all aspects of their lives through comprehensive and wide-ranging programs that empower them to become self-sufficient yet connected, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ encourages their active engagement in improving their communities. This mission is carried out as Ilé-Ifẹ̀ works to achieve the five primary objectives of the organization:

1. Develop cultural awareness and self-esteem by exposing families to traditional African

artistic forms and their evolution into contemporary cultures.

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2. Give families and communities of African descent the tools to become self-sufficient and

transcend challenges perpetuated across generations.

3. Support families and communities of African descent to reach their optimum potential by

attaining harmonious balance among the mind, body, and spirit and through proper

nutrition, exercise, and cultural awareness.

4. Create leaders for local neighborhoods and international communities.

5. Develop, document, and disseminate a comprehensive, African-centered approach to

youth and community development (Archer‐Cunningham, 2007)

The Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Rites of Passage programs ensure that youth of African descent flourish throughout their transition to adulthood. The young people who participate in the rites program increase their confidence, assertiveness, and self-esteem as they develop the disposition and skills needed to combat the inequities they witness and sometimes experience in their communities. Drawing on traditional African values, the rites program uses cultural knowledge to prepare youth to become active in the healing and renewal of their communities.

Sisters in Sisterhood (SIS), the rites program for young women, and I Am My Brother

(IAMB), the program for young men, serve youth between 13 and 21. In preparation for this rigorous experience, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ also offers “pre-rites” for children between the ages of 8 and 12.

These programs operate on-site at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ three days a week and off-site, Monday through Friday, at public high schools in Brooklyn. Both are focused on personal and professional development, literacy and verbal communication, cultural exposure, community service, intergenerational exchange, and health and wellness development. The on-site program also includes a focus on spiritual awareness and requires greater parental commitment. International travel is an essential part of the rites program. IAMB and SIS graduates have traveled to Africa, South America, and

80 the Caribbean to participate in modern-day coming-of-age rituals. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy is dedicated to supporting the creative, educational, and vocational development of African descent youth in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and surrounding communities.

Program Goals

The average student has been a member of the Rites of Passage Program for seven years or longer in some cases. An important component of the Brother’s Rites of Passage program is the introduction and full discussion of historical and contemporary issues young boys and men of

African descent face in America and globally. These discussions serve as a foundation for developing skills necessary to survive the dangers of racial profiling, police brutality, incarceration, gang membership, and drug use. Below are some of the program goals:

· To teach boys and young men successful life skills through goal setting and planning.

· To provide opportunities for participation in the modern-day coming of age rituals.

· To offer Health and Wellness Workshops that provide the tools to ensure all the young

brothers' mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.

· Workshops address pregnancy prevention, drug use prevention, HIV/AIDS awareness,

and avoiding gang involvement.

· To help each student develop and act upon his responsibility to engage in service

activities to his community and assist in its development.

Attributing their retention success to their dedication to connecting holistically with the child. The sister’s rites of passage program offer a comprehensive range of supportive services to each student by giving them a sense of belonging through socio-emotional programming. Girls and young women have the opportunity to explore and research spiritual traditions while

81 defining a sense of spiritual identity that resonates with cultural family traditions and personal comfort levels.

Here are some of the program goals below:

· Sisters join a community in which their voices are actively sought and respected.

· Sisters develop a strong sense of sisterhood, forming relationships based upon trust and

community.

· Sisters participate in the extended family model and begin to develop additional

resources for problem-solving.

· To teach girls and young women successful life skills through goal setting and

planning.

· To provide opportunities for participation in the modern-day coming of age rituals.

· To offer Health and Wellness Workshops that provide the tools to ensure all the young

sisters' mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.

Workshops address pregnancy prevention, drug use prevention, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, and avoiding gang involvement. To help each sister develop and act upon her responsibility to engage in service activities to her community and assist in its development. Ilé-

Ifẹ̀ also engages in a comprehensive assessment system and evaluation, including employing an

African-centered system called Mbongi. This Ki-Kongo term means “a place of learning” and provides a governance system for equitable and collective problem-solving. This creates an opportunity for young people to share their experiences in a nonthreatening and nurtured environment openly. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy examines and regularly evaluates the impact the Rites curriculum has on the youth and pays special attention to the youth’s increased understanding and appreciation of their cultural identity.

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Participants

Sampling

According to Stake (1995), case study research is not primarily sampling research (p.4).

The first obligation is to understand the case. The next step is to maximize what we can learn given our purpose, which leads us to our participants. Therefore, I employed purposeful sampling, which is generally used in case of study research, whether the case in question is deviant or extreme, a critical case, a convenience case, a politically significant case, and so on

(Creswell, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Considering the case is critical due to the resources that may limit the study of only one site (program, community, population), such as Ilé-Ifẹ̀

(Patton, 2002). Purposeful sampling is a technique widely used in qualitative research to identify and select information-rich cases for the most effective use of limited resources (Patton, 2002).

This involves identifying and selecting individuals or groups of individuals that are especially knowledgeable about or experienced with a phenomenon of interest (Creswell & Plano Clark,

2011). In addition to knowledge and experience, Bernard (2002) and Spradley (1979) note the importance of availability and willingness to participate and the ability to communicate experiences and opinions in an articulate, expressive, and reflective manner.

The purpose is to capture information-rich cases that will help gain insight into the study.

More specifically, the participants are homogeneous based on being selected for having a shared characteristic or set of characteristics. For example, each participant has graduated and is currently an alum of the ROP. This is a homogenous sample created based on participation and completion.

Each participant is identified with a pseudonym that the researcher assigned during the research's data analysis portion. Basic demographic information, such as age, hometown, and

83 study program, is included for each participant. Within the findings section of Chapter 5, I will provide a more thorough description of the students’ thus providing a context for their experiences and perceptions of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy. There were six participants involved in this study. Three were African American males, and three were African American

Women.

Below is a broad overview of the demographics of each participant

Table 1. Ubuntu Study Participants Demographics

Name Educational Educational Racial Nationality Spiritual Current Career Background Major Identity Identity Identity

B.A. Hampton African Nonprofit Osun University English American Jamaican Female Agnostic management

African Youth B.A. Agnes American Panamanian development Imani Scott College Psychology /Black and Jamaican Female Spiritual specialist

B.A. New African Bété, African York Business American American Nonprofit Oya University Management Female Agnositc management

Organizational Trinidadian Development B.A. Eugene and Black Professional & Sango Lang Liberal Arts Black American Male Christian Psychotherapist

B.A. University of African Black Music Business Oluremi the Arts Fine Arts American American Male Spiritual Entrepreneur

B.A. Howard Afro Black Musician/ Obatala university Architecture Caribbean America Male Ifa Educator

In this study, the participants offered a broad perspective of their rich experiences as ROP students at Ilé-Ifẹ̀. Within the short range in age from 21 to 35, they all experienced a unique

ROP program with different instructors, contributing to a wide range of experiences. The

84 participants shared how many years they participated in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and some salient identities; however, each participant has their way of expressing their cultural and spiritual backgrounds outside of the ROP program's organizational structure. Each participant was asked questions about their parents' and grandparents' background, family dynamics, and marital status. More importantly, each participant shared details of the current career and or occupation. The self- reported data revealed that all participants were enrolled in college and, in some cases, professional school. Additionally, I asked if they partake in any African-centered college courses, ranging from Ethnic Studies to Africana Studies courses. I will go into further detail of their background and relation to the site in chapter five and provide descriptions through both quotations and paraphrased in-depth commentary of the participants to present a vivid and real sense of the encounters in the ROP program.

I will preface this section by documenting the conversations surrounding African- centered epistemological assumptions that frame this study and shapes my understanding of my positionality. Furthermore, I propose using case study methods as an appropriate research design for this study purpose and its research questions. Subsequently, I will outline the structure and provide a brief overview of the site as a case, the participants, and the data to be sampled within the study. Lastly, I will provide a rationale for data collection and analysis of the research design.

Epistemological Assumptions

The three assumptions in research are: epistemological, ontological, and methodological, which provide an opportunity for the reader to gain an in-depth understanding of the researchers’ perspective of the world, the nature of knowledge, the origins of its claims, and how they are connected to the method of gathering data and analysis. Epistemological assumptions are philosophical beliefs about the nature of knowledge, and ontological assumptions are those about

85 the nature of reality (Merriam, 2009). My methodological and epistemological assumptions draw from traditional and African-centered ways of knowing and meaning-making, described in this chapter.

African Worldview

The origins of the African worldview were found in traditional Africa before the emergence of European influences. Although colonization and the vilification of Africa by

Europeans modified Africa to an extent, some of the practices and the philosophical concepts of pre-colonial Africa have survived and manifested into a culmination of traditions from the continent (Mazrui, 1986, Mbiti, 1990). According to Asante (1987), the African-centered or

Afrocentric worldview is based on the centering African cultural beliefs, practices, and values.

These cultural beliefs are but are not limited to customs, habits, skills, arts, values, ideology, and religious expression. Although the African worldview consists of variations of African ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge, and a way of life, it provides a group of people who share a historical foundation that traces back to Africa.

The African worldview places Africans in the center, and it further reorganizes the

African frame of reference so that African history, culture, and worldview become the context for understanding Africans. This creates a context that begins to challenge the privileged status of the European worldview and places people of African descent in the center of their conception of reality (Thabede, 2008). An African worldview is characterized by a need to understand the world from an African epistemological perspective with a reference frame on traditional pre- colonial Africa's philosophical concepts.

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African Epistemology

African epistemology fosters a fundamental paradigmatic shift in how we think about ways of knowing and interpreting the world. The African traditional knowledge system presents characteristics that speak to African epistemology's inner workings, emphasizing spirituality because African epistemology regards the experiential world and the nonexperiential world as causally related (Emmanuel & Asukwo, 2019). African epistemology is deeply rooted in African tradition; it is metaphysically and spiritually inclined. It is to co-exist as one with nature, in which case, puts certain concepts of reality beyond the constructs of space and time. For example, African epistemology considers everything that exists is charged with life forces or spirits. With this understanding, everything that has existed since the beginning of time possesses some spiritual foundation. Therefore, there is a spiritual connection with all life forces: god, divinities, ancestors, man, animals, plants, and minerals. Epistemologically, this paradigm provides a sense of understanding reality, and it is a social construction by the way a person tends to understand his or her relationship with social institutions, nature, objects, other people, and spirituality (Barker, 1999)

This can be seen as a representation of the lived experiences, history, and traditions of

African descent as the center of analyses is an African epistemology that makes meaning of the world from a spiritual collection of relationships. These relationships are sustained through traditional oral values, morals, mysteries of the universe, the meaning of life and are taught and passed down to future generations. Therefore, it commands serious importance in African epistemic heritage to connect with previous generations for guidance in all life matters. These interrelationships between the spirit and the living give a new meaning to life, the world, and relationships with others and oneself.

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Case Study Methodology

In this study, I aim to use differing perspectives held by methodologists Robert K. Yin,

Sharan Merriam, Robert E. Stake, Brown, Stevens, Troiano, & Schneider, Seidman, a well- rounded approach to a case study. Research cannot be conducted without methodology, and by using underlying theoretical principles, I attempted to incorporate decolonizing methods to consider the relationships with the participants and the existing institutions. Qualitative methodology is useful in exploring and describing people's experiences, especially when little is known about the phenomenon under study (Brown, Stevens, Troiano, & Schneider, 2002). The purpose of using a case study approach is to explore and understand how complex phenomena occur (Brown et al., 2002). The purpose of case studies is to provide an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single, bounded unit situated in a specific context to provide insight into real-life situations (Merriam, 2009; Pickard, 2013.)

Although this study particularly has a case study approach, the complex phenomena of spirituality and indigenous African knowledge systems present themselves in ways that allow for engaging in African-centeredness in a deep and sacred way. This is often troubling, including the

Western discourses, cultural frameworks, and normative approaches to where people of African descent are not considered in research and the academic lives as teachers and scholars (Dillard,

2006; Dillard & Okpalaoka, Smith, 1999). Many African ascendant scholars (Asante, 1988;

Cruse, 1967; Dillard & Okpalaoka, 2012; Hilliard, 1995; hooks & West, 1991; King, 2005) suggest fundamental crisis exceeds the biographical situatedness of the researcher and the research project for African ascendant scholars. that should be deeply considered here is the difficulty of working within and against the hegemonic structures that have traditionally

88 and historically negated and impeded African knowledge's intellectual, social, and cultural contributions (Dillard & Bell, 2011).

Case study methodology, as defined by Yin (2002), states that a case is a “contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between a phenomenon and context are not clear and the researcher has little control over the phenomenon and context”

(p. 13). A case is “a specific, a complex, functioning thing,” more specifically “an integrated system” which “has a boundary and working parts” and purposive in social and human services (Stake, 1995 p. 2; Smith, 1978). With this understanding, I tend to expand on this methodology by integrating Dillard's (2008) concept of healing methodologies as situated, sacred, and spiritual work in multiple spaces and places where African ascendants and other

Indigenous peoples find themselves. She further suggests that healing methodologies from an endarkened feminist framework also involve several critical engagements:

1 . A person must be drawn into and present in a spiritual homeland.

2. A person must be engaged with/in the rituals, people, places in intimate, authentic [and

humble] ways.

3. A person must be open to being transformed by all encountered and recognize those

encounters as purposeful and expansive healing methodologies. (Dillard, 2008, p. 287).

Engagements with Indigenous African knowledge and epistemological and methodological tools we have traditionally used to engage research can be problematic because of the complex relationships to the past and present in the act of reflectivity (King, 2005). This is healing work where we examine or return to a sacred place for African people. This place can center the spirit and shift the epistemological and cultural location of our thought and action within an African Worldview world. For this inquiry, I engaged in a pilgrimage that was

89 simultaneously sacred and spiritual that problematize traditional methodological approaches

(Busia, 1989; Dillard, 2008, 2011; Marshall, 1984)

Data Collection

The techniques for data collection and what is considered data are guided by the research questions and the context of the case framed in Afrocentric theory. This next section will discuss the participants' data points or reflections during the collection process. Interviews will be a method used to capture my participants' stories. To give the details of their experience, interviews offer a beginning, middle, and end where people can reflect on their stories and offer constitutive details of their lived experiences. For this study, I employed the semi-structured interviewing method. Semi-structured interviews provide open-ended questions and flexibility to allow the respondents to freely share and expand on their experiences (Merriam, 2009). The participants were selected because of the uniqueness of their perspective as graduates or alumni of the Rites of Passage Program. As well as their shared experiences with the larger case. Thus, semi-structured interviews provide questions aligned with the research questions, purpose, and theoretical framing in mind and further explore the topic by both the researcher and the interviewee. Also, the employed will be asking good questions, which is imperative to gather rich and relevant data.

Merriam (2009) recommends developing interview questions focusing on participant experiences and behavior, opinion and values, and knowledge. Interviews were audio-recorded upon approval of the participant for data transcription, analysis, and member checking.

Memoing occurred after each interview as a form of iterative reflection. I interviewed The Ilé-Ifẹ̀

Rites of Passage program to gain a historical and present-day understanding of the organization.

More importantly, this allows the participants to reflect on them, giving them order and making

90 sense of them that tells stories a meaning-making experience (Schutz, 1967). According to Yin

(1997), semi-structured rather than structured interviews can be employed because it offers sufficient flexibility to approach different participants while still covering the same data collection areas.

I used the Dolbeare and Schuman (1982) approach using three-interview series to design three interviews that characterize this approach and allow the interviewer and participant to plumb the experience and place it in context. However, I combined all series of interviews into one. The first stage of the interview will establish the context of the participants’ experience.

The second stage of the interview allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs. Lastly, the third stage will encourage the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them. My approach will also be coupled with Falola and Bangura’s approach to interviewing using an African-centered approach to Sankofa methodologies. Sankofa's methodology is based on the concept of Sankofa, literally translated as "It's not taboo to go back to the source and fetch what you forgot" (Bangura, p.

175). Sankofa symbolizes the importance of learning from the past, the source of which is the

African culture and identity (Bangura, 2019). These approaches to the interviews will collectively attempt to answer my research question.

Five major concepts undergird African thought in Sankofa methodologies. First,

Affirmation of Life is the core of African life, respecting traditional and indigenous ways of knowing anchoring one to their community. In essence, affirmation encompasses generosity and or kindness, sharing, humility, respect for the sacredness of life, and bravery. Creation is the thought that emphasizes the reverence of life. This stems from the stories of creation stories of

91 how and when people, the earth, plants, and animals came to be in various oral traditions. This tradition brings forth the idea of how life is all-pervasive, sacred, and people are interconnected.

Community in African thought consists of the conglomeration of people living, dead, and unborn. The dynamic presence is never-ending. In this view, the community is thoroughly fused in the collective “we,” in which the organic relation is assumed between those who compose that community.

Person in African thought refers to the fact that the individual is not separated and understood apart from the community. The concept of “person” implies fusion with the community, incorporating the individuals into the community and incorporating the community into the individual’s heart. Stated in another way, a person who has been incorporated into the community has placed in their heart the values and that the society or community perceives as being essential to be called a person. To become a person, one must pass through rites designated to incorporate them into the community of persons: naming, initiation, marriage, having children assuming the role of eldership, and passing through the final rites of death.

Lastly, Work is an integral part of life and is not categorized as a “job” or defined by time into work periods. It occurs everywhere inside and outside of home-and anytime. It calls for collaboration and communal efforts for the benefit of the community. Through work, a person knows the meaning of caring since it creates opportunities for learning, understanding, and practicing generosity. This moral obligation ensures security and mutuality for all.

Utilizing these concepts in interviewing will allow me to take a holistic approach in understanding the participants. More specifically, it will allow me to capture moments of their lived experiences within the case. In the next section, I will further explain the method of the interview process.

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Interview Structure

Interview Stage One: Focused Life History

In the first stage of the interview, my approach would be to put the participant’s experience in context by asking them to tell as much as possible about themselves in light of the topic up to the present time. Reconstructing their early experiences in their families, in school, with friends, in their neighborhood, and at work will allow me to provide context to the participants’ experience in school and in any situations such as camp counseling, tutoring, or coaching they might have done before coming to any Ilé-Ifẹ̀ programming.

Interview Stage Two: The Details of Experience

The second interview aims to concentrate on the concrete details of the participants’ lived experience in Ilé-Ifè. I asked them to reconstruct these details. Gathering the details of their experience, upon which their opinions may be built. According to Freeman Dyson (2004), to put their experience within the context of the social setting, we ask the student teachers, for example, to talk about their relationships with their students, their mentors, the other faculty in the school, the administrators, the parents, and the wider community. In this second interview, I also ask them to reconstruct a day in their experience within the Rites of Passage Program. More so, capturing from when they woke up to the time they fell asleep. This allowed me to fully frame

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and the context in which it exists to understand the participants' experience better.

Interview Stage Three: Reflection on the Meaning

In the third stage of the interview, the questions would be structured to reflect on the meaning of their experience. For example, home, school, program experience. Questions surrounding making meaning will require that the participants look at how their lives interacted to bring them to their present situation. The combination of exploring the past to clarify the

93 events that led participants to where they are now, and describing the concrete details of their present experience, will establish conditions for reflecting upon what they are now doing in their lives. This will allow me to draw any connections to Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s mission, goals, and values.

Length of Interviews

To accomplish the purpose of each of the three interviews, I utilized Dolbeare and

Schuman (Schuman, 1982) 90-minute format. Given that the purpose of this approach is to have the participants reconstruct their experience, put it in the context of their lives, and reflect on its meaning, anything shorter than 90 minutes for each interview seems too short. According to

Dolbeare and Schuman, doing so gives unity to each interview; the interview has a chronological beginning, middle, and end. Also, I used Sanfoka's “Historical Archaeology Approach,” which asks questions about the past that relate to the present to help the researcher understand the context towards a considered and intentional future (Bangura, 2011, 2019, Little, 2007). Barbara

J. Little (2007) seen the human story as a source of hope and renewal. She desired that “we can all hope that respect-or at least tolerance and perhaps even celebration-will flow from the present to the past and back again to the present” (p.178).

Document Review

“Case Study Research,” Robert Yin stated that case studies are only successful when built upon collecting and analyzing multiple data sources. For this , I obtained various documents such as strategic plans, lesson plans, the theory of change documents, teacher and students handbooks, and other institutional documents to capture an in-depth view of the organization. Yin (1995) mentions documents serve as substitutes for records of activity that the researcher could not observe directly (p. 68). Documents will be collected and analyzed to understand the role of internal and external influences that shaped the institution. Also,

94 documents will allow us to understand how the people who participated in the program shaped the organization throughout time. I also kept a journal for interviews and observations, notes regarding document analysis, and overall journal reflections for further analysis throughout the process.

Selection of Participants

Participants for this study will be purposively sampled. The participants consisted of alumni or graduates of the Rites of Passage program at Ilé-Ifẹ̀. This consists of the Rites program modeled in two overarching cohorts, the Sisters in Sisterhood (SIS) program and the I Am My

Brother program (IAMB). Each cohort is categorized by age group ranging from 5 to 18 years of age. I specifically chose to examine both cohorts to understand the ROP program in its entirety.

Also, I wanted to examine further if there were any similarities and or differences in program offerings based on gender. Although the focus is not based on gender, this study is framed to focus on evaluating African culture and the participants' lived experiences. However, the realities we live in are structured to reinforce systems of domination specifically against Black women.

Having this conscious or unconscious critical awareness is evident when examining the multidimensionality of race and sex that both play roles in the systems of discrimination

(Crenshaw 1989, 139).

Upon receiving permission, an email request was sent to the participants who meet the broad characteristics. I documented specific details regarding their participation such as, how long and how many programs they’ve participated in. More importantly, if they officially graduated from the ROP program and recognized by the program and community as a brother or sister who met the completion requirements. I was sure to capture the demographic makeup of the participants in this study in detail. Due to the organization's size and uniqueness, and to

95 ensure confidentiality in reporting the findings in this study, participants’ names and other identifying factors were withheld.

Data Analysis

The purpose of conducting a qualitative case study analysis is to provide in-depth, rich descriptions of the case, seeking a greater interpretation of the phenomenon of interest within the case. Data analysis in case studies is important for developing the description of the case and analyzing and interpreting the case. Data analysis aims to make meaning of the research questions, and the case study data analysis involves interviews, observations, and documents collected throughout the study (Merriam, 2009).

Qualitative data analysis is often inductive and comparative. Merriam (2009) argued that the goal of data analysis involved “consolidating, reducing, and interpreting what people have said and what the researcher has seen and read” (p. 176). The inductive analysis will allow me to emerge details and specifics of the data to discover important patterns, themes, and inter- relationships; it begins by exploring, then confirming findings, guided by analytical principles rather than rules.

I was afforded access to the organization in ways not afforded to an outsider. While authors Brannick and Coghlan (2007) argue that Alveeson’s (2003) perspective of an insider makes this form of research seem almost incidental, they contend that “insider” research should be more formal, structured and well thought out. Brannick and Coghlan (2007) argue that all researchers can be considered insiders throughout some aspect of their life, either within their families, communities, or organizations. With this understanding, I continuously was in a reflexive state of awareness, critical to researching an insider. Further, as Brannick and Coghlan suggest in their work, having an insider perspective situates the researcher in a reflexive position

96 where their insight of the site of study can help the research project in ways perhaps an outsider could not, primarily because of issues of access and trust. I revisit me positionally as a researcher to further problematize methodological approaches. This process is not linear as I am grappling with decolonizing educational research in the context of liberatory ends.

Coding

The initial coding to include the narrative of the children who are now adults. I gathered their relationship from the various contexts where they exist. I also examined their everyday lived experiences and their relationship within and among their peers, in and between programs, and within their historical, political, economic, and social contexts.

For my first coding method, I employed open coding, “being open to anything possible”

(Merriam, 2009, p. 178). I use “open coding”(Charmaz, 2006) to break down the data into discrete parts, closely examining them and comparing them for similarities and differences

(Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 102). Many themes might emerge from an initial analysis of the data; therefore, I also employed pattern coding in my second coding cycle. Pattern Coding is explanatory codes that identify an emergent theme, pattern, configuration, or explanation

(Saldana, 2009). Pattern coding groups summaries into smaller sets of constructs.

The coding process will be guided by the purpose and research questions of the study and the theoretical framework. This guidance will help identify meaningful and relevant data points for the study. As mentioned, analysis within each case will occur and analysis across each case, identifying codes that are later developed into themes and categories. Data collection and analysis will continue until the point of saturation, or when no new insights are formed from the data (Merriam, 2009). I have developed descriptive accounts of the case through the coding process, labeling them as themes and categories. Themes and categories are created through

97 coding, searching for the smallest unit of meaningful data, and identifying patterns that span the data. The coding process will begin inductively and, as themes and categories are generated, becomes more deductive.

There were three levels of analysis: (a) open coding, (b) deductive coding, and (c) pattern coding. At each analysis level, a constant comparison was used to distill the data further until themes emerged from the data. Explanations are provided to present how themes were developed from individual interviews. To illuminate my findings, quotes from participants will stress key themes for deeper theorizing of the experience within the case. The participants reflect on their past as they make meaning of their presence while looking out to the future.

Data Management and Analysis

Qualitative studies often incur a tremendous amount of data and careful selection on which data to use is an important part of the analytical process (Rudestam & Newton, 2007). The case study researcher aims to pull apart instances and put them back together in more meaningful analysis and synthesis (Stake, 1995). This presented challenges considering each participant was prompted to reflect on past experiences from their childhood as adults. This exercise required them to go back in time, remember their experiences as a youth and critically interpret them and make meaning of their experiences as an adult. Their interpretations were categorized within the

ROP program in my attempts to situate them in a specific place and time. Under those circumstances, I was challenged to differentiate and interpret how several external and internal factors contributed to their lived experiences outside of the cultural organization and the various cultural programming they participated in when they were enrolled in the ROP program.

Identifying as a community member and my contributions to the organization through previous scholarship, collaborative community efforts, and insight into an evolving curriculum, I

98 deeply consider my role as a Rites of Passage instructor. Considering that interpretation begins in the early stages of inquiry—even during the development of a research plan, my assertions are made from a mix of personal experience, assumptions, and perspectives that influenced my study approach (Stake, 1995). This experience and others' personal lived experiences being a product of the community offered me a deep understanding and insight into the case, specifically from my role as an administrator within the organization. According to Stake (1995), an analysis should not be considered separate from everlasting efforts to make sense of things while the interpretations of the researcher are likely to be emphasized more than the interpretations of the people studied, preserving the multiple realities—and even contradictory viewpoints—within the study are possible through rigorous analysis processes (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2017). This is one way to ensure that an examination of plausible rival explanations is considered (Yin, 2017). With an intrinsic case study such as this, the primary task is to understand the case—tease out relationships within and out of the ROP program, probe issues, and collect categorical data

(Stake, 1995). I directed my interpretation of that data over categorical aggregation as suggested by (Stake 1995) but understanding that this case has several intertwining experiences that contribute to each participant's overall experience.

Frameworks Analytic Codes and Descriptions

After obtaining all data, I listened to the recordings, read and re-read through interview transcripts, and carefully reviewed data retrieved from organizational literature. Central to my analysis was an ongoing transcribing and coding process throughout the study guided by the purpose and research questions of the study and the theoretical framework. First, I applied an opening coding process, in which I summarized attributes of the case with an easily identifiable label (Richards, 2005). From this process, I created 87 codes that broadly covered the

99 experiences of each participant. Secondly, I used pattern coding to retrieve explanatory codes that identified emergent themes and patterns for deeper explanation (Saldana, 2009). This approach began inductively and became more deductive, requiring constant revision and modification as themes and categories were formed. My analytic codes were designed to correspond to my theoretical framework (See Table 1).

Table 1. Analytical Codes and Descriptions

Analytic Codes

Framework Themes Analytic Codes Description

African- Ubuntu: PA: Programmatic Approach Ubuntu relates to bonding with others. This is in line centered Collective • RFP: Respect for with what the word expresses in most African Practice Responsibility Peers languages: being self because of others. This is • RFE: Respect for expressed through collective social and community Elders responsibility with respect for elders and community • APP: African members. Program Praxis • APPV: African Principles and Program Values • Collective Responsibility

African Ancestral SA: Social Cultural The process and methods used in developing a Worldview Memory Interactions practice of centering, sustaining, and maintaining an • TC: The Circle African worldview. Also, ways the participants • CE: Community connect these practices through moments of Engagement movement to memory. • CP: Collective Participation • P: Proverbs • MM: Movement and Memory African Sankofa: Cultural CR: Critical Reflection The process of critical reflection makes meaning of Epistemology Meaning Making • ACP: African- past cultural experiences generate a deeper centered pedagogy understanding of current lived experiences. • IE: International Experience • EE: Educational Experience • PR: Personal Rituals

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As Strauss and Corbin (1998) suggest, through an inductive process, open coding involves reviewing all text for descriptive categories, developing and refining each category until no new information yields any additional meaning (Rudestam & Newton, 2007). Following the systematic coding process, I developed major themes and sub-themes in which the initial twelve themes were collapsed and modified down to seven core themes and codes. These themes were then refined and considered for theoretical implications. After completing the coding process by hand, I uploaded all data into Atlas.ti, a qualitative and mixed methods online software. This was incredibly helpful for organizing interview transcripts, organizational literature, and media images. The theoretical codes that emerged from the data were deep and substantial. I drew important connections between each participants’ ideological reflections about their experiences as an ROP student from a child into adulthood.

Analysis and Interpreting the Data

I used a Sankofa practice conceptualization based on African descendants who have ancestors who experienced enslavement through the data analysis process. Sankofa offers wisdom offers a solution to reconstituting the fragmented cultural past. The term is from a proverb or saying Se we were fin a wo Sankofa a yenkyi, which translates to It is not a taboo to return and fetch it when you forget (Willis, 1998). Today Sankofa, which in conventional translation means “go back and fetch it,” “return to your past,” and “it is not taboo to go back and retrieve what you have forgotten or lost,” has emerged as a diasporic practice.

This innovative use of Sankofa as a scientific technique allows me to approach the study within an African worldview's conceptual framework. Several orientations influence Sankofa practice toward African consciousness as the legacy of natural, cultural behaviors documented in its early usage by enslaved Africans who came to the Americas and in later usage, possibly,

101 through epic memory. Also, as a tool of resistance concerning rejecting Eurocentric language and world views and insisting on the relevance of using African conceptual possibilities to define and characterize African life in the contemporary ways, lastly as the symbolic gestures of

Diasporan Africans interested in general forms of “returning to the source,” or psychological steps toward Africanness (Temple, 2010).

Using the concepts of Sankofa influence my approach to data analysis in this case study.

The knowledge bases related to Sankofa practice in the United States allowed me to construct a narrative about each participant's lived experiences as they reflected on their past to understand their present and future, affirmed, renewed, and embedded in the history of Sankofa.

Ethical Considerations

Maintaining the integrity of the relationship with participants and their privacy is of serious concern when conducting qualitative research. All sites and participants choose a pseudonym at the beginning of the study. Additionally, informed consent documents were provided and signed by those giving consent to participate in the study. An overview of the study, including the purpose and intended data collection methods, was shared with the informed consent documents. All hard copy data and data analysis documents, along with informed consent documents, were kept in a locked filing cabinet in a locked office. All electronic data will be kept on a password-protected computer owned by the researcher. If a participant wants to withdraw from the study at any point, the participant may do so, and all data collected regarding the participant will be discarded. However, no participants withdrew from the study.

Issues of Trustworthiness

Conducting this research, I was intentional about trustworthiness for the dependability and credibility of this study. Being grounded in ethical procedures and guided by ethical

102 decision-making, I wanted to be sure that my data was credible. Qualitative studies refer to the congruency between findings and reality (Merriam, 2009). Dependability refers to the consistency between findings and the data collected (Merriam, 2009). To maintain the stability of my questions, interpretations, and evaluations of the findings, I sought to capture rich, thick descriptions of the case to support the data as received from participants. Many practices have been used in qualitative research to enhance the credibility and dependability of the study.

However, I met regularly with my dissertation chair and co-chair and a peer debriefer (Creswell,

2013, 2014; Janesick, 2007; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Spall, 1998) to discuss this dissertation project as I engaged in the research. Doing so strengthened the analysis through triangulation

(Jones et al., 2014; Knafl & Breitmayer, 1989; Krefting, 1991; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) among persons with multiple positionalities, which helped ensure that I was not projecting my own experiences onto the participants’ data. Triangulation and research positionality is used in this study to increase the level of trustworthiness. Triangulation refers to using multiple means

(methods, data, researchers, theories) to corroborate the findings. Multiple forms of data are collected in this study to triangulate findings.

Additionally, to enhance the study's trustworthiness and transferability, rich descriptions will be provided in Chapter 5 to pinpoint the development of the case study's in-depth accounts.

This is arguably the value of the case study method. Merriam (2009) argued, “The general lies in particular; that is, what we learn in a particular situation we can transfer or generalize to similar situations subsequently encountered” (p. 225). The key to transferability is to provide sufficient evidence, allowing the reader to make decisions about further applying results.

Lastly, I consistently considered my insider/outsider positionality while conducting this study related to trustworthiness. Specifically, reflecting on the impact between the researcher and

103 participants' relationships. Considering that I share cultural backgrounds as the participants as an

“insider,” I provided opportunities and advantages in collecting qualitative data over “outsiders” who do not share similar backgrounds or experiences. My positionality was significant considering my political ascribed status and race, class, and roles as a political organizer, community leader, and volunteer.

Most of the participants addressed me as Brother Alade because of the cultural respect and relationships from interacting in the same communal spaces. In this case study, I address this by reflexively analyzing the variability of my positionality as an insider. However, I understood my role and the difficulties of negotiating positionality as an outsider when conducting interview questions. Also, I had to be aware of the challenges associated with assuming that I would be accepted based on my community connections. Understanding the balance between building rapport and trust with each interview participant while maintaining distance as a researcher put me in a position of power and privilege. What is unveiled is the complexity inherent in my status in which I acknowledged that the boundaries between the two positions are not all that delineated. To address the issues of power and positionality when conducting this study, my assumptions about the phenomenon being investigated, my observations, and the people to be interviewed were made clear by the participant's meanings and interpretations. I would argue that drawing from contemporary perspectives on insider/outsider status, that during this study, I did not only experience moments of being an insider and outsider, but that these positions are relative to the cultural values and norms of the researcher and the participants. In this case, we share more commonalities than differences that were factored in when bearing on knowledge construction and representation in the research process.

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CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH SITE (ILÉ-IFẸ̀ CULTURAL ARTS ACADEMY)

Old Brooklyn Versus New Brooklyn

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ sits in the epicenter of one of New York's creative whirl of Black musicians, actors, artists, and writers; otherwise known as Brooklyn, New York. Amongst this place of creative and artistic expression outside the doors is an ever-changing world that has been influenced by gentrification and the racial shift in the economic and cultural appreciation of formerly disinvested and devalued inner-city areas. Brooklyn is currently being influenced by the affluent middle to upper-class neighborhoods. Although New York is rapidly changing, gentrification can be seen as the new-wave colonialism, and it has economic, societal, and public health repercussions for poor communities of color. With the systematic displacement of people of color from their homes, the term Old Brooklyn comes from the voices of migrants from

Africa, South America, and the Caribbean who have lived in the United States for decades. They comprise some of the most gentrified areas from Bedford Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Crown

Heights, and now East New York. They built a community and culture that cater to some, but not all, of their needs as a people. However, what they call New Brooklyn is now a place where cultural and societal barriers have disadvantaged them. They are situated next to real estate companies and developers designing communities resulting in immense gentrification. People of color are being displaced from their communities and the normalities and cultural norms of their neighborhoods. They were once ed neighborhoods finding themselves between a rock and a hard place.

New York is notorious for stereotyping minoritized groups where Black and Latinos are disproportionately arrested and criminalized within their communities (Hinton, Henderson &

Reed, 2018). With neighborhoods swiftly changing, and the demographics shifting causing an

105 imbalance between new inhabitants who consist of middle to upper class working professional to the community and those who have resided there for decades, specifically with a shift in culture and the demographics of a neighborhood may be at the expense of low-income poor people and people of color. Amid the redefining and shifts within the communities, some community-based organizations continue to hold on to the rich cultural and historical traditions in the midst of finding and defining community.

Overview of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy- Brooklyn, New York

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy is an African-centered community-based organization dedicated to supporting the creative, educational, and vocational development of youth and families primarily of African descent (Ilé-Ifé Cultural Arts Academy. (2021). https://Ilé-

Ifè.org/). Founded in 1989, in Brooklyn, New York, by Kwayera Archer-Cunningham, a seasoned professional dancer, educator, and community builder. For over 30 years, Ilé-Ifẹ̀

Cultural Arts Academy has offered rites of passage (Rites), an after-school program serving youth between 5 and 21. The organization strives to enhance their lives by providing cultural awareness, performing and visual arts, academic instruction, health and wellness, and professional skills development. They are proud to promote that they are a supportive community and extended family able to provide students with skills development and new perceptions leading to responsible decision-making.

The program provides educational enrichment and a nurturing community to build participants’ intellectual and emotional skills. The comprehensive African-centered curriculum has been honed over time and incorporates intensive programming and coaching, teaching strong

African values, cultural awareness/global community, financial education, and asset building.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s unique culturally specific youth development instruction engages youth and their

106 families to reinforce their cultural identity and further develop strong skills and competencies concerning their personal, emotional, social, academic, financial, and leadership development and to thrive and become self-sufficient members of the community.

Through the lessons and activities as structured in the Rites curricula, youth are said to develop a strong cultural identity and a global understanding through their study of the African

Diaspora. Youth develop key skills in their chosen form of African artistic expression, which comprise textile design, mural building, graphic design, theatrical art, drumming, capoeira, and other forms of expression that encourage individuals' holistic development.

The Meaning of Ilé-Ifẹ̀

The name “Ilé-Ifẹ̀” is used as a pseudonym for the organization. However, the name of this community-based organization comes from the West African Yoruba word meaning, “love is enough for joy.” This is a guiding principle and the foundation of their approach to youth and families' development, growth, and building community. The organization’s work is a reflection of values that have been historically upheld in African societies. Communities of the African

Diaspora have always valued the contributions that every community member contributes toward its success. Individuals share the high value placed on unity within the family and reverence for elders and spiritual health throughout the Diaspora. Also, African descent communities have always viewed the arts as integral to the spiritual, psychological, emotional, educational, and recreational dimensions of their lives. As a result, the arts and cultural learning serve as the foundation for the Ilé-Ifẹ̀ approach to developing communities.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ takes this holistic approach to help adults develop heightened self-worth, communicative skills, and stronger connections to each other, family, and community. To combat some of the obstacles to well-being experienced by the community members served, Ilé-

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Ifẹ̀ has developed a comprehensive community development model that addresses the marginalization and disconnectedness resulting from one’s inability to see oneself dominant community. Nothing in this dominant environment references their heritage or reinforces the essence of who they are. The African perspective that permeates Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s arts programs begins to remedy this.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s Approach

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ states that their work reflects values that have been historically upheld in African societies. Communities of the African diaspora have always valued the contributions that every community member makes towards its success. Here are four interrelated frameworks that form the basis of the Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Approach:

Kawaida is a Swahili word that describes a system of thought which centers culture as the key component for the liberation and development of African people. Kawaida, the original work of Dr. Maulana Karenga from which Kwanzaa was born, serves as a cultural and social change philosophy. Karenga would be considered one of the principal thinkers of African-centered thought in America. He differs from other cultural theorists in his ability to simplify complex thought from various abstract philosophies to create concepts that enhance Africa's thought and culture and create communal ideas for collective transformation that go against all forms of oppression. For example, the Kawaida principle views the lack of knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of African cultural values as the most pressing challenge in the lives of the African

Diaspora. The central idea behind Kawaida is the indispensability of community, not only as a base of cultural construction but also as a source of resistance. Dr. Karenga's work encourages to do more than acquire knowledge, which can be found in public schools' common practice. He

108 challenges African descent people to restructure their thinking to see themselves as part of a larger human project towards liberation by strategizing to change it (Asante, 2013).

Mbongi, a principle derived from the Congo's ancient empire, is an ideal that challenges us to create dynamic communities that its members mutually constitute and were positive, nurturing. Ethical relationships are fostered between the individual and the group. Mbongi serves as a mechanism for individual and collective resolution and healing as community members traditionally gather in a circle to draw on age-old strategies for returning the peace and creating systems for growth (Fu-Kiau, 2007).

Harambee, translated from Swahili, means “pulling together.” Together with kawaida and mbongi, the act of Harambee, or coming together to accomplish a common goal, contributes to a guiding framework that recognizes the saliency of communities working together in ways that are culturally grounded, compassionate, and motivated by the desire for unity, economic empowerment, healing, and well-being (Fu-Kiau, 2007).

The Nguzo Saba is Dr. Maulana Karenga’s framework for addressing the need for

African Americans to be grounded in African-centered thought and practice as a means to build community, encourage self-determination and inspire a return to traditional values (Lateef &

Anthony, 2020) . The Seven Principles: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination),

Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose),

Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith) are held up as the characteristics, values, and virtues we strive to instill in our young people.

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Core Principles

● Kiumjula (Holistic): We believe communities are strengthened through approaches that

are comprehensive and holistic. We are therefore committed to the development of the

whole person, mind, body, and spirit.

● Ubuntu (Connectedness): We believe in a universal bond of sharing that connects all

humanity. Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term that roughly translates as human kindness. “I

am because we are.”

● Ilé-Ifẹ̀ (Love): We believe that love is the center of the work that we do. Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Yoruba

word from Nigeria, West Africa, which means love is enough for joy. Restoring love and

joy in our community through programming that reflects the richness of African culture.

● Mbongi (Collective Decision-Making): We are committed to collective decision-making

in developing and delivering excellent programs. Mbongi (Kikongo), which means

“Place of Learning,” is essentially a governance system that brings people together to

resolve community challenges.

● Sankofa (Critical Reflection): We believe that learning from the past is critical to

building for the future. Sankofa is a word in the Akan language from that

translates as “reach back and get it” (san-to return; ko-to go; fa-to fetch, to seek and take).

These five core principles are at the heart of the Ilé-Ifẹ̀ approach to serving youth and their families through African-centered programs that are holistic and comprehensive. They are integrated throughout the work of the organization and result in the following statements (a)

Learning from the past is critical to building for the future; (b)The philosophy and mission of Ilé-

Ifẹ̀ are integrated throughout the work of the organization; (c) Excellent teaching and program administration are the result of critical reflection and collective decision-making; (d)

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Communities are strengthened through approaches that are comprehensive and holistic; and (e)

Youth, families, and communities are strengthened and empowered when they are held to high expectations.

Guiding Conceptual Framework

There is a conceptual framework that informs the Ilé-Ifẹ̀ approach and upon which their core principles are based. Each finds its origins in the wisdom of ancient African traditions yet remains culturally relevant. Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s teaching and learning system include a uniquely practical approach to youth and community development. The first is the threefold cultural strategy of

Mbongi, a traditional African form of governance and community problem solving; Kawaida, the integration of traditional African cultural practices throughout organizational programs; and

Harambee, cooperative economics. These cultural strategies, born out of the traditional African and African American experience, provide the foundation for teaching, learning, and the organizational structure within Ilé-Ifẹ̀.

Additionally, their approach emphasizes collective versus individual achievement, as they prioritize citizenship and community development over individual success. Lastly, their approach includes integrating youth perspective into the organizational structure and the balance of power that includes youth in decision-making. Mbongi is a practical example of how youth can exert their perspectives alongside adults by “calling” the community together to address problem-solving at will. The community is obligated to respond in a circle.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Programs

Since its founding in 1989, Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s work has grown to encompass six integrated programs that serve over 3000 students annually through our on-site academic and literacy training, personal skills development, community involvement, cultural heritage classes, and

111 socially responsible artmaking, and an additional 5,000 youth and families throughout the community through our affiliated programming and public performances.

Rites of Passage Program

The Rites of Passage program, Sisters In Sisterhood (SIS) and I Am My Brother (IAMB), leads youth through a year-long process of learning African concepts and philosophical principles of development pre-adolescence to early adulthood. The program's important components include African-centered cultural identity awareness, leadership development, community service, health and wellness, and gender studies. The Rites of Passage program is subdivided into three separate age levels: “Pre-Rites” serves youth ages 10-12, “Transition

Rites” serves youth 13-15, and “Rites” serves youth ages 16-18 in three separate and sequential tracks.

Cultural Heritage Program

Cultural Heritage Program (CHP) is the foundation of Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s existence. Designed to offer people of African descent the strongest sense of self, Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s CHP includes special workshops, courses, cultural exchanges, and cultural tours. The CHP provides historical information about the great cultures of Africa and the diaspora to youth and families. Youth develop a sense of connection with their ancestors' vast and complex history in our Africana

Studies courses. Our Africana Studies course is an interdisciplinary field of study devoted to the critical and systematic examination of the cultural, political, social, economic, and historical experiences of African descent people worldwide.

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Youth Ensemble

The Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Youth Ensemble (IYE) is a pre-professional training ground for young artists ages 13-18 who are interested in seriously developing their art forms while having opportunities

112 to perform throughout NYC and play an active role member an ensemble. Members must audition for a limited number of competitive scholarships within percussive music, dance, acting, and visual arts. As an active, youth-driven ensemble, IYE also does research and artist development while learning to engage audiences by examining current social justice topics through the arts.

Arts Education Program

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is pleased to offer Arts Education in schools or community organizations! Our talented faculty conduct engaging and culturally enriching classes that span from single sessions throughout the school year. Areas of study include dance (African, hip hop, , modern); drumming (African or trap); visual arts (painting, sketching, graphic novels), and capoeira.

Financial Education Institute

The Financial Education Institute (FEI) offers financial education training for youth and adults. Our comprehensive program provides workshops and resources for financial well-being.

Participants gain the skills to be financially independent and acquire assets for themselves and their communities by setting goals for their future; establishing regular saving habits and discipline; and invest in assets that will allow them to achieve their goals.

Cultural Arts Program

The Cultural Arts Program (CAP) is Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s flagship Saturday performing arts academy for youth ages 2-18. We offer year-long courses at multiple levels in dance, music, theater, visual arts, and martial arts taught by an excellent staff of experienced and trained teaching artists who specialize in making children feel confident and proud while having fun as they learn techniques within the expressive arts. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ CAP scholars get an opportunity to demonstrate their talents and growth at the end of the year with an exciting culminating program open to the public.

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CHAPTER 5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore, examine, and understand the experiences of graduates (alumni) who participated in a gender-specific rite of passage (ROP) program at Ilé-Ifẹ̀

Cultural Arts Academy, a community-based organization located in Brooklyn, New York. The primary construct of interest is an African centered pedagogy and its influences on identity, which is comprised of two parts: (a) cultural values with origins in African cultures that have been intentionally retained and (b) the development of a social and or political ideology that intentionally incorporates elements of an African worldview in their everyday lives. This study used a qualitative case study research methodology to examine the lived experience of people who participated in a program where African-centered identity concepts are incorporated in a comprehensive developmental practice through art and culture.

Semi-structured interviews were implemented for six adults to understand their experiences as children who participated and successfully graduated from the ROP program in

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy. This study was designed to investigate how participants reflect on their lived experiences as children and how their experience has influenced their understanding of their ethics, morals, values, and cultural identity as adults. Moreover, this study takes a deeper dive at examining how their lives closely aligned with the mission, vision, and intended outcomes of the ROP program and coalesce with rich, thick descriptions of an African worldview. Less consistent results regarding participants’ development of their cultural identity are discussed within the findings based on their perception of their experiences and how they situate themselves based on various factors from participating in a community-based cultural arts program. All participants’ narratives were discussed regarding their implications for identity,

114 their social construction of identity, and the influence of the environment on identity development.

This study was guided by one overarching question: How do African-centered rites of passage programs influence the daily lives of participants who graduated from Ilé-Ifẹ̀, a community-based African-centered organization? Four sub-questions support this primary question to guide the inquiry:

SRQ1: How do graduates of a community-based African-centered education program

make meaning of their experiences in the program?

SRQ2: How has the experience participating in a community-based African-centered

education program influenced their thinking about race, culture, and identity?

SRQ3: What about the experience of participating in a community-based African-

centered education program influenced their level of engagement professionally, socially,

and politically with race, culture, and identity?

SQR4: How do graduates see their thinking and engagement connected to the vision,

mission, and values of the program?

This chapter contains the process that was undertaken to produce results from analyzing the data from the aforementioned research questions. This includes how the research was conducted to clearly understand how I interpreted the data using case study methods.

Additionally, this chapter includes an overview of the process used to code transcripts from the six individual interviews to uncover various thematic domains and categories that emerged from the data analysis. Themes and categories are divided into three sections based on this study’s research questions.

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Prevalent Themes

As the data was analyzed, several themes emerged from the participants' reflective perceptions (Osun et al.) about their ROP experiences from early childhood stages into adulthood. Each participant provided a robust description detailing Ilé-Ifẹ̀, specifically the ROP program; they were also explicit about their participation in and perceptions of the program and its relation to their lived experiences today.

Various thematic domains and categories emerged from the data analysis. The major themes that emerged from the coding process are Ubuntu, Ancestral Memory, and Sankofa:

Cultural Meaning Making. Each theme was constructed from the conceptual framework by linking specific research questions to the larger theoretical construct. The aim is to highlight specific responses aligned amongst the research question, which informed data collection and data analysis. Themes and categories are divided into three sections based on thematic domains, research questions, and the conceptual framework of this study.

Ancestral Memory

TELL YOUR STORY After they’ve fed off of your memories Erased dreams from your eyes Broken the seams of sanity And glued what’s left together with lies, After the choices and voices have left you alone And silence grows solid Adhering like flesh to your bones They’ve always known your spirit’s home Lay in your gentle sway To light and substance But jaded mirrors and false prophets have a way Of removing you from yourself You who lives with seven names You who walks with seven faces None can eliminate your pain

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Tell your story Let it nourish you, Sustain you And claim you Tell your story Let it feed you, Heal you And release you Tell your story Let it twist and remix your shattered heart Tell your story Until your past stops tearing your present apart - Lebogang Mashile (1979)

The first section addresses the process of how Africans remember experiences and what are the rituals for preserving these ideas. The development of this idea is within the African

Worldview's conceptual framework in which emerged the theme, Ancestral Memory in response to the following research question: How do graduates of a community-based African-centered education program make meaning of their experiences in the program? Essentially, what methods are used within the ROP program to develop a practice of sustaining and maintaining childhood experiences and manifesting in their lives as adults. This section will also address how moments in their ROP journey become a foundation of how they make meaning of their lived experience and how they committed these experiences to memory and passed them down from generation to generation.

From reviewing social science literature related to centering identity within an

Afrocentric framework, I have come across many cultural values that the authors consider being components of this ideology. However, many of those values do not directly speak to the process of how the individual makes meaning of their past and present lived experiences. More specifically, what elements contribute to the foundations of an African-centered identity. The

117 participants typically described their African-centered perspectives by words, terms, or phrases linked to constructs of an African worldview described in the literature. In all interviews, the participants often reflected on various experiences and the practices that they deemed central to their experience within an African centeredness ROP program. Those experiences were coded, which derived the first theme, Ancestral Memory. The following quotes closely relate to the thematic categories that were identified.

Every participant mentioned some form of African sociocultural interaction or practice that served as a distinct memory of their experiences as a youth in an ROP program. Many of their statements consist of experiencing humanizing affirming cultural practices. The first experience often mentioned and frequently connected an African-centered movement, ritual, or practice that preserved the meaning behind the experience. There seems to be something essential and fundamental about the connection to an “act” to the memory and how that memory is connected to an ancestral practice that is preserved within the program, as illustrated by the following statements:

I've learned first off, one of the first things is ancestors. Every before we ever do a ceremony or a Rites of Passage ceremony or we have a show to do, end of the year show or there's even, they may be at an important meeting with the council of elders present, always pour libation to the ancestors that came before us. Ones whose names we know, ones whose names we do not know. And I feel like that was, that was important. But besides that, besides our ancestors, I feel like that was a gateway into understanding overall, I mentioned this before, but Simba Simbi, uphold that which upholds you. And understanding in full that you're a representation of all those who came before you and the responsibility that you have. So yeah, there's always understanding that you have something to do, you have people to make proud. -Sango

Any mentions of having a spiritual foundation were not in a particular region or religious context. However, a reverence for ancestors was discussed as an important aspect of the ROP program. This connection is a spiritual relationship mentioned as a ‘gateway to overall

118 understanding’ and representation of their ancestors and elders alike. Within an African worldview, spirituality as a theme is prominent throughout the literature. It speaks to the African- centered paradigm on how a person tends to understand a spiritual relationship with social institutions, nature, objects, and people alive and deceased. Such connections are also expressed through idioms that derive from proverbs. For example, Sango mentions “Simba Simbi,” according to this philosophy, Simba Simbi is the guiding principle of everything in the universe, all seen and unseen. It is a spiritual, key concept to life and living; all successes and failures depend upon it (Fu-Kiau, 2007). This idea suggests a connection with his ancestors. Simba Simbi is also a tool to gain consciousness of how you relate to the world around you. This relationship was typically based on ancient African systems of belief and is coupled with particular rituals or practices that connected the participant with African-centered practices that connects them to ancestral memory to represent the community. Such reflections connected them to a deeper understanding of the practices that they still enact in their lives:

“Yeah, I didn't grow up in a religious home necessarily. I always had a sense of a relationship with the creator, but I didn't... we didn't have a structured, religious practice at home. But it's weird. I've always had a connection to a higher power. So, at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ , part of that connection to a higher power was a connection to the ancestors, to the spirit world, and how the spirit world continues to guide us and protect us. So, when we do libations, and when we call on the ancestors for our support, that's always been enfolded in my spiritual belief.”- Imani

What is commonly discussed as a spiritual connection with ancestors is the pouring of libations. In African cultures, African traditional religions, the ritual of pouring libation is an essential ceremonial tradition and a way of giving homage to the ancestors. Ancestors are not only respected in such cultures but also invited to participate in all public functions. A prayer is offered in the form of libations, calling the ancestors to attend. An elder generally performs the ritual. This ritual is a pouring of a liquid as an offering to a deity or spirit or in memory of the

119 dead. Various substances have been used for libations, most commonly wine or other alcoholic drinks, that could be poured onto something of religious significance, such as an altar, or into the earth. It was a common cultural or religious practice and continues to be offered in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ meetings, activities, ceremonies, and culminating events. She continues to explain further the phenomenon that serves as an ancestral memory later after reflecting on the experience:

“I'm trying to think. I think even drum circles. I would consider them a collective practice. After an event, we might drum and dance, and those things were just like exultation and release and joy and celebration of each other and our art…. You give thanks to the ancestors, that powers that be that allows you to be in that space together. You kind of ask for their permission, and I think usually we would pour out water or liquor in order to give almost in a literal way. Like, "Here. Here's life. We're giving to these ancestors." Then also to show sacrifice and love. Giving even food or water or something like that to show that we're giving these things that we might not be able to see in this realm like respect. I think that's a collective practice that you would do before a big gathering.”-Oya

Oya reflects the drum circles. African drums have special, deeper symbolic, and historic meaning when compared with western music. Traditionally African drums were the heartbeat and soul of an African community. African drums have been inseparable from the traditional

African lifestyle for centuries, with drums used to celebrate any occasion in their respective communities. More specifically, as she mentions, drum circles are often regarded as a spiritual tool to the point of calling up ancestral spirits. The important role that African drums play as it relates to ancestral connection cannot be overemphasis. African drums are believed to be one of the oldest musical instruments made and hold a spirit within them. African drums were considered a way of communication and making music. Drums have accompanied all forms of ceremonies in African societies, from births, war, victories, deaths, and other rituals. Oya sees this as a collective practice where you give thanks and life to the ancestors, and from her perspective, this is a respectful engagement that seems to be common practice.

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Sango also mentions this practice but stresses the importance of knowing where he came from regarding lineage to Africa. “I would say that this is also goes back to the beginning of major events or ceremonies, meetings where we pour libation to the ancestors, where we acknowledge where we came from... There's a lot of importance held on, knowing where we came from.”-(Sango). Most of the participants who mentioned a connection to ancestors refer to the act or practice of acknowledgment; most often, they referred to the lineage or family line of most African Americans that can be traced back, beyond slavery, to the people who lived on the continent of Africa. According to Azibo (1966), an African-centered sense of self incorporates family, community, ancestors, children yet to be born, and divine spiritual entities. However, the ancestors' range considered immediate family members (e.g., grandparents who passed) to the first human civilization members from centuries ago that inhabited Africa. At a minimum, participants mentioned the importance is remembering this practice to have a deeper understanding of self:

“...I think because of how disjointed African communities are throughout the diaspora because of slavery, it really leaves people wondering who they are. And if you go back a few generations and it stops at a slave and you don't know anything past when they came to this country, you kind of feel like your lineage, your history just started from slavery, and that's not the case at all. And so, even if you don't know exactly what nation, African nation your ancestors came from, at least you have a broad understanding of what their practices may have been or what are some common Pan African universal practices that you can apply to your life.” -Osun

Osun speaks about the challenges that one might face in going back to the past and how much was lost when people of African descent came to this country. She highlights this by expressing how many African Americans see slavery as the foundation or the start of their history. In her reflection, Osun expresses her journey to connect to her ancestors' memories by retracing her history to Africa. Interestingly, she mentions how finding this information will

121 allow her to understand common practices within the diaspora that can be applied to their life today. Such experiences are embedded in the ROP program as expressed by Obatala:

Rites of Passage is a place where young men or women can mold themselves with guidance into responsible young adults while remembering the values that connect us back to Africa, connecting us back to our heritage, that we are always upholding ourselves and standing on what came before us.- Obatala

Obatala speaks of remembering the values that connect him back to Africa. He mentions how the ROP program is one way to continue to bind the people together in one community because ancestors show the continuity of the society and compel communal action when necessary. He states that he is “standing on what came before.” This phrase is closely related to the African proverb, "If we stand tall, it is because we stand on the shoulders of many ancestors."

Like a sculpture that is slowly crafted together, piece by piece, so are the achievements and legacies of our memories, our pasts, of who and what we are. From an African paradigm, the universal truth is that none of us can birth an idea alone or nurture a school of thought without many others' support. So the fact that we “stand on each other’s shoulders” represents the generations' ongoing-ness. The sense of responsibility that he mentions is coupled with maintaining and sustaining heritage, history, and culture. Such acts are to be considered a sense of maturity within the culture.

Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility

We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am. The "I am" is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance- Michael Onyebuchi Eze (2010)

The second section from the conceptual frame of African-centered Practices emerged the theme Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility, which response to the research question: How has the

122 experience participating in a community-based African-centered education program influenced their thinking about race, culture, and identity? More specifically, What about the experience of participating in a community-based African-centered education program influenced their level of engagement professionally, socially, and politically with race, culture, and identity? This section addresses the participants’ overall manifestation of meaning-making related to their identity based on the concept of Ubuntu which loosely translates to, and I am because we are. This concept of Ubuntu as it relates to Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is connectedness and human kindness. Examining this further, essentially, what is/are/was the systems that contributed to the dynamics of connecting humanizing practices and relationships with peers, elders, and community. Also, what connects their collective experiences to their identity and how they make meaning of these experiences in the ROP program.

During the interview process, each participant recognized themselves as unique amongst their peers who did not necessarily participate in the ROP program. However. they did not see themselves as “different” or referred to their peers as “other” in their differences due to the same collective struggle they shared. Moreover, what they shared was their connectedness to humanity and the sense of responsibility they had for one another. This collective responsibility was the most visible part of this theme. Ubuntu as encourages community equality, propagating the distribution of knowledge, wealth, and overall resources, which was expressed in various ways from the participants:

I think the pride and culture, the African culture, culture of people of Africa is what we use when I see we mean Ilé-Ifẹ̀, is to as the learning tool to reach the community. I think the reason why the organization was created, and it's still done is out of a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty to the people. Seeing that something is needed and filling that void. And love, it describes all

123 of that. Love for yourself, love for your people, love for culture that makes you start this, do this, see the value in it. And what even gives it the energy to keep going, the fuel, love. -(Obatala)

Like Oluremi, Imani expresses this same sense of responsibility in more specific ways but also offers a counternarrative about American society:

I learned that many African cultures are collectivist, right? So, they are similar to Ilé-Ifẹ̀ like an interconnected web of support. So, a lot of the African communities rely on each other for economic development, for agriculture, for childcare, for child-rearing, for education and there are clear expectations of everybody in the community to be in support of that system. That's very different from growing up in the United States, where it's a very individualistic society, where people are just focused on themselves and their own greatness. So, I guess their own success.- Imani Imani compares Ilé-Ifẹ̀ to African cultures as a collective “interconnect web of support” in all aspects of life. From food, culture, education, and family support. This is an amazing finding due to her perceptions regarding American cultural practices that she believes to be

“individualistic,” where people focus on self rather than community. Imani’s perceptions are closely related to the literature around African centeredness and its role in pushing away from

Eurocentric ideologies that promote individualism as a value, promoting personal responsibility rather than a shared collective system seen within an African-centered paradigm.

According to the participants, this collaborative work transcends personal aesthetics. It gives a functional significance to the value of communities and the expectations within the roles that everyone holds within the community. This idea of "collective responsibility" must not be understood as absolute in which the community's good is before the individual's good. From this perspective, ubuntu communal philosophy promotes an unconditional recognition and appreciation of individual uniqueness and which allows one to pour back into the community that has poured into them:

I believe that it's... I think that it's directed my intention towards the career that I'm in right now created... it's become an intentional part of my life where I am connected to the

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world, and therefore I have a duty to support people that have less of a voice in the world.-Imani The concept of Ubuntu has appeared in ways where the participant has become critical about their social role with the community, where they live. Perceptions about interactions, participation, recognition, respect, and inclusion emerged from the data in ways that allowed each participant to examine themself concerning their community. When asked if African- centered pedagogy was the key component of the ROP program, Oya’s response connected to the concept of Ubuntu that alludes to the shared collective humanness and social ethics as means to examine how Africans have framed accountability and responsibilities:

I guess where I am is that I don't think that is necessarily the magic sauce. I don't think that the magic sauce of the program was that we were learning African terms that we were learning African history. I think the magic sauce is the fact that you feel accountable to your peers. The fact that you are learning discipline, the fact that the people in the community are making an effort to continue to cultivate community. It's like you said, people might disagree, but I think in terms of the building of self, obviously that can come from your lineage, but you can also draw from other things. You might also take a humanistic approach like you are enough, and you are beautiful- Oya

Oya referred to the “magic sauce” as historical Afrocentric learning practices and terminology. However, she connects the “magic” to accountability, discipline, and the cultivation of community. Interestingly, Oya’s understanding is her ability to connect to African theories, which provide a strong philosophical base for the community. Oya’s association with the harmony and cooperation of her peers and people in the community means working for the benefit of the whole, based on a long-term vision, rather than the benefit of constantly changing individuals. What is compelling about her statement is applying the core values of Ubuntu, such as humanness, caring, sharing, respect, and compassion develops the humane character of the individual in ways it connects with the greater good of the community.

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Oya also mentions how one can draw from their lineage, which ties into ancestral memory concepts, exhibiting the two concepts' seamless connection.

In an African-centered paradigm, the concept of self-concerning community is consistent across African-centered theorists and is critical when exploring individuals’ experience of their cultural selves. According to Parham, White, and Ajamu (1999), from this perspective is not the individual; instead, fundamental human operations function to ensure the group's survival. This perspective emphasizes interdependence rather than independence, and interrelatedness, rather than separateness. It is captured in the ideology of Ubuntu “I am because we are and because we are, therefore, I am” (Mbiti, 1970). Ubuntu brings froth the concept of connectedness, but it also serves as a tool to identify how American society is constructed in various ways for individuals to work in isolation which was expressed in narratives from the participants:

Yeah, I think is that, as long as there are people of the African diaspora living in America, the way America's designed at the moment, which doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon, then there needs to be a space that is empowering to people of African descent. I think that we would prefer to be accepted because that is safer, but it is not a reality. So, allowing African people to feel comfortable and excited and proud to be African and be connected to a culture that is affirming of their... the way they look, the way their communities operate, the way their culture exists any way like that should be affirmed so that they can then in turn be empowered to continue on. Right? -Imani

Imani speaks about the systemic power in American and the lack of space that empowers people of African descent. What is powerful about this statement is her sense of reality exists where safety is a component of the freedom of expression, although she does not see it as a reality. From this paradigm, African-centered education includes the concepts of Ubuntu, where a systematic way expression of African people’s will allow them to recover, recreate, and perpetuate their cultural heritage (Pollard et al., 2000). According to Eyo (1991), this approach to education is derived from the Afrocentric worldview by revisiting and refocusing how African

126 culture and people of African ancestry have contributed to the world. Imani points out a key perspective on how these practices affirm so one can be empowered within their own within the context of their own culture and history allows students to identify and see themselves within the learning process to “continue.”

The questions presented challenged the participants to engage in critical thinking of the world in which they live. More specifically, the environment conducive to critical thinking around race, ethnicity, and culture reflects growing up in an environment where race permeates every facet of life. From an African centered educational practice, The Council of Independent

Black Institution Web site explained that an Afro-centric education creates “knowledge and discovery of historical truths; through comparison; hypothesizing and testing through debate, trial, and application; through analysis and synthesis; through creative and critical thinking; through problem resolution processes; and through final evaluation and decision making.” There is a clear similarity as the participants are made to question the status quo and the purpose and benefit of the societal norms as they consider how they navigate society:

The conflict is that that's not true. You're still treated the way that you're treated as a black person in America in spite of how much you think that you can assimilate into white culture. So, I think that traditionally white institutions, which are most American and European institutions, are not open to people of color being their authentic selves and really being connected to what it... to their experiences, and they're very over denial of acceptance of that. I think that for as long as black people have had any degree of freedom in America, there are some small factions of the black people that wanted to return to African traditions if they weren't completely stripped of them. There were others that wanted to assimilate the best they could for survival, but it's garbage. it's just this internalized belief that you can mimic your oppressor, but you can't, and your oppressor can see who you truly are, and they don't want you.- Imani Imani identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, perpetuating people of color's marginalization. She speaks on the mere fact that if

African Americans find themselves with status by assimilating, they are not immune to the realities of White supremacy and racism. Studies continue to show that there is a correlation

127 between being of African descent and upper-middle-class and suffering racialized discrimination

(Feagin & Sikes, 1994). Indeed, Imani realizes that there are people who try to engage the idea of

White supremacy for survival. However, you cannot become your oppressor, for your oppressor still sees you as “other” therefore, one should consider not adopting such Eurocentric concepts and be one with their authentic selves.

Sankofa: Cultural Meaning Making

The third and final section addresses the process of reflecting to make meaning of past experiences. This concept is structured within the cultural frame of African Epistemology which emerged the theme of Sankofa: Cultural Meaning Making in response to the following research question: How does an African-centered rite of passage program influence the daily lives of participants who graduated from Ilé-Ifẹ̀ , a community-based African centered organization?

How do graduates see their thinking and engagement connected to the vision, mission, and values of the program? This theme addresses the specifics around lived experiences, historical events, and or text that allows the participant to critically reflect and make meaning of their experience. More importantly, as they reflect on the past, what specific moments attached themselves to memory, whether art, dance, or other programs traditions within Ilé-Ifẹ̀. Moreover, when they reflect on these experiences, they recover to generate a deeper, critical understanding of each cultural practice and how it manifests for the participant in various ways.

Sankofa

That bird is wise,

Look. Its beak, back turned, picks

For the present, what is best from ancient eyes,

Then steps forward, on ahead to meet the future, undeterred.

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Kayper-Mensah’s (1976)

Sankofa an Akan word that means “to return and recover it.” This involves returning to the rich resource of the African past or history and using it as a foundation to improve the present and enhance the future (Karenga 2001). This process of returning to the course in the constant quest for valuable and diverse knowledge of African peoples and African culture has become a central concept within the data. Many of the participants when through the ongoing process of deeply critically reflecting on their lived experiences to discover and recover many revelations of their lived experiences that are connected to some of the most important paradigms of African thought and practice:

Absolutely, man. I think it affected me indirectly, and like I just said a couple minutes ago, it's not until you really sit down sometimes and really think about... Sometimes, you need to sit down and really think about what you've been through and things like this or things that have been very pivotal. Or even if you don't think that they were pivotal, think about what you spent much time on in the past and then really see.-Sango

Sango reflects, imagines, and then condenses these reflections, imaginings, and intuitions in various ways. Within this process, he can speculate about his lived experience by probing every aspect. From this moment in the interview process, he may pose questions about the fundamental principles that underlie his experiences with aspects of human life. He later makes a coherent picture of his lived experience and the world he shares with me, ultimately real and true.

As an Afrocentric methodological practice of historical recovery, Sankofa collects data and a critical analysis of meaning from an African-centered standpoint (Keto, 1995). Within the data, the participants constantly develop and expand their understanding of their experiences.

Still, they also used it as a critical resource to understand and address the major issues of their time. This emerged in several different ways, from a critical reflection on societal issues,

129 childhood experiences in the ROP program, cultural connections, and even current career choices. The next series of quotes highlight some of these experiences:

A lot of times, African American people try their best to acquiesce into culture, and they can't. Then there's all this breakdown in African American communities. But if the community is empowering of itself and continues to believe in the beliefs that they had exist in other African cultures, then maybe they'll be... they'll find empowerment together rather than having to rely on a system that's not designed for them to help them survive. It won't ever happen that way.-Imani

Imani uses the concept of Sankofa to reinscribe into African values, and it relates it to a communal effort to empowerment. She explains that survival is the absorption of an African belief system that can provide a path to cultural knowledge, rather than assimilating into

Eurocentric cultural norms and values that are not of their own, which is detrimental to their survival. Osun connects her critical perspective from an African worldview: the interconnectedness of all things, the spiritual nature of human beings, and their collective connection with nature and its oneness of mind, body, and spirit (Tahbede, 2008). This connection with Africa not only as a conceptual idea but is a part of her life from childhood into adulthood, giving her a sense of pride and power:

African, yes, absolutely. If I am focused, I am centered, I am disciplined, I have pride in myself when you're two years old, and those things are ingrained in you from two years old all the way up until you're in your late teens, that is what you believe. And so, I walked into those white spaces knowing I'm centered, I'm African, I have pride in myself, and I'm not going to allow anyone to make me feel inferior because I am just as powerful as they are. In the Black American space, I noticed that the differences were that even though there was a sense of community, I think that the sense of spirituality was very different. -Osun

Osun’s reflection indicated that they have the responsibility to be centered, focused, and disciplined concerning her identity and community. This ongoing process indicates that self- knowledge is linked to the cognitive self. For Osun, in some ways, her assurance is an accurate representation of her authentic self that reflects the collective understanding of her culture and the African community. This connection improves the level of understanding that is significant

130 in the growth and transitions Osun had in her life. Obatala alludes to similar experiences that

Osun mentioned in her transitional years from a child to a teenager. However, Obatala considers the meaning of his experiences and how it relates to his identity as an adult:

I would say that, well as I've grown up, I've understood that it is important to have people around you that are like-minded and have the same rearing as you to a certain extent to understand that like-mindedness can really help to uplift you in a sense that you always encourage other people to move forward and you always bring something to the table to uplift one another. But something as simple as having an African name. I feel like it will be harder for me to have had friends that so many friends that have African names, for example, that was just uncommon growing up outside of these types of communities. These culturally deprived communities are uncommon, and so it could definitely help me have people that I felt were of the scene of the same cloth as me of the same caliber.- Obatala

Obatala's conceptualization of Sankofa in practice is based on his reflection on the orientation to have a community that shares cultural ideologies which encourage positive behavioral practices. This practice within the theme of Sankofa offers a solution to reconstituting the fragmented cultural past where cultural similarities are liberating in ways that chronicle positive affirming and humanizing behavior. African names, as mentioned by Obatala, hold meaning and power, and history in African cultures. Obatala's connectedness with his name and being in spaces where people understand and respect him makes him feel a part of something greater than uplifts him in various ways.

Sango critically reflects on his time in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ from a toddler and specifically recalls his admiration for music and arts and states that his “roots” are and draw a connection with African,

Jamaica, and Panama. He then identifies himself as a musician and an architect with music giving him a voice to project a message and architecture as a tool to create a message that will stay through time. This idea is further highlighted in the following statement:

Well, toddler expressions, that was, I guess, when I was a toddler, two or three years old. You know what I mean? So, that was that time, the beginning time. But actually, from that age all the way until my last day at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ , I was taking classes, program classes. I was always doing music stuff, anything with music and arts. So, I was always in, I guess, any

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type of percussion. I'm a percussionist. So, that's where my roots are. I'm really connected to the whole African, Jamaican thing as well as Panama. I do a lot of stuff dealing with music. I am a musician. I write. I also sing, spit, dance, all of that. And I also do a lot of architectural work and stuff with real estate and building. Those are the two things that I love to do because I feel like with the music, you have the potential to really project the message, And if you have a good message, you can really reach a large potential of people. It's almost like people who are in a certain position of power musically; people listen. And if you have the right message like , for example, you keep it simple. People get it. And in regards to the architecture, you can create something that's going to stand here for thousands of years or whatever you want it to represent. It's still going to have that essence, even when you're gone. So, those two things I really hold dear to me, and that's what I'm about, yeah. So, I'm involved in the community. -Sango

Sango considers how his message is within the music. Within an African paradigm, the messenger is the one with the power, and in this case, he refers to Bob Marley, a world-known

Jamaican musician, as a connecting his message to the world within himself. Bob Marley's music is worth noting due to his messages that impact people of African descent. The song

"Redemption Song” speaks about free as he states: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds," commonly associated with Bob Marley, actually originated with Marcus Garvey: "We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind." Those are the words that

Marcus Garvey spoke in either October or November 1937. Such selection of mentioning an artist of this caliber provides a critical reflection to a timeless moment where a person's mind can speak words into existence, which continue to impact those who hear them to this very day profoundly.

Sankofa provides a philosophical idea that helps resolve conflicting thoughts by revisiting the past, situating yourself in the present while making decisions for the future. In many cases, as the participants went through the act of going through this process, it presented a deeper understanding to consider their ROP experiences and their and interpretation of recent

132 and distant cultural traditions to envision future political and cultural work (Hilliard, 1997). This emerged in the data how the participants considered the way they made meaning of their careers in the following quotes:

My goals are constantly changing. Like I said, I wanted to be in non-profit management. I'm really keen on owning my own business and kind of learning about what that means. I think especially if I'm thinking about hiring people and employing people, I'm already thinking about the of the communities that I build and the institution I'm a part of, so I think it adds extra weight. I work for [major corporate company], which means I work ultimately for [White Multi-Millionaire and Business Owner]. So I'm constantly just thinking about what I want to do in the future and what does that represents to my people? What does that mean for my people? Just this strong feeling of being responsible to my community. It's definitely impacting where I think I want to go and where I want to work, and ultimately, if I own a business, what do I want that business to sell exactly? Who am I providing business services to? Where does that money go, and what am I investing in. That is extremely important to me.-Oya Imani also reflects on her career and professional experiences and how an African- centered approach is applied in her practice and influences her decision making:

I think that it's... in my professional life and personal life has transformed itself into unconditional compassion for the clients that I serve, for the agency that I serve, for the people that I connect with day in and day out. There's a term in psychotherapy called unconditional positive regard, like how we should always treat our clients, and I think that it's more than. ... I think that I've transformed that belief into unconditional love and compassion for our clients and for the belief that they can live a life and recovery from mental health, mental illness, from substance abuse, from domestic violence, from whatever they've been through...

To a great extent, the strength of critically reflecting lies in the participants' ability to keep alive the concepts and deep-rooted understanding of their identity. From the symbolism of

African cultural practices and the cherished truths and values of their life. The participants seem to grapple with their current and future chooses, as mentioned by Imani. What is consistent with the participants in the nature of meaning-making related to Sankofa is choosing to sustain oneself in a world of the unseen and unknown. Such knowledge that was presented is now passed on in

Imani’s work which exhibits the frequent nostalgic call for authentically African expressions

133 rooted in her lived experiences. Instead of contributing to the stagnation of professional practices, she offers an African centered approach to support her clients:

Well, I think that an African centered approach has really informed the way I {professional health care career}, the way I practice my primary job in organizational development, which includes training because one of the biggest things is being open and honest and authentic with every... in every interaction that you have, right? So even if it's going to be uncomfortable, that doesn't mean that you sweep it under the rug, which is a total white institutional, cultural practice. Right? So, for example, in therapy, I'm part of a trauma-focused therapeutic intervention workgroup, and I'm the only person of color in the group, and we have conversations about how to support our clients in family sessions, for instance. -Imani

The concept of Sankofa allows the participants to critically reflect on the humanizing and holistic practices they encountered within the ROP program. The combination of dialogue, rectification work, and ancient African wisdom coupled with experiential learning processes using expressive arts, imagery, meditation, and spirituality has culminated in creating the

Sankofa reflective experience. Participants expressed how the ROP program believe that learning from the past is critical to building for the future in which they valued and deemed as necessary:

The first thing that comes to mind when you read that was the fact that nothing in rites was done or presented to us that was not rooted in tradition. And so even if it was modernized so that it would be relevant and applicable to our current lives, we still had to go back and fetch ancient traditions and practices and understand why they were valuable and why they were necessary for today's life, and how to use them in a way that was beneficial for us.-Osun

Osun remembers the root of her experiences and holds them tight in all that she does in her adult life. This African-centered perspective subscribes to the spiritual and cultural ethos of

Sankofa as she continues to go back and fetch African traditions. Noting is a process that needs to be understood, protected, and maintain, and it is a necessary tool that is essential for her life.

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Summary

These few quotes provided provide a snapshot of the experiences of the participants. It offers a glimpse of the complexity of issues, identities, and politics shaped by particular conceptions of the African worldviews. However, my role as a researcher and member of the community presented itself throughout the study with its collaboration at times, especially when

I believe some participants started to reflect through the interviews in ways. They began to make meaning of their experience in real-time. What I discovered was the act of reflection. They encountered multiple and complex representations of themselves in the past. With the ability to understand, construct, and negotiate between and among these multiple relationships and realities, they can continue to unfold a deeper and rich understanding of themselves in a way they never considered before. Although predominantly the data was closely aligned within the theoretical framework, there were instances where the data moved away from the foundations of an African-centered paradigm. I would interpret this as a continuous shift in positionalities because of the real-time realities of making meaning of social relationships. There was also the reality that that there was a possibility that they were moving away from their cultural experience in unintentional ways. These moments in the process suggest that the work is transformative and continues to be so much later in their lives as adults. The work is not being an African essentialist that cannot be unchangeable or immovable. Instead, these positionalities of the participants are always shifting, always problematizing the sense of the reality of who they are in the context of an ever-changing world. I struggled to articulate these instances in the research where there were no patterns and themes found in common between such narratives. However, I would be remised if I did not mention how my own experiences, as I reflect upon the data, situates me in the same space and place in time.

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Within each interview, I had a chance to take a brief peek into the lives of people of

African descent and travel back with them through reflection to find an urban African child connecting with these experiences was listening to their childhood needs and understanding their desires, and hearing their stories of their families and background. The value they placed on each humanizing experience. From each emerging theme, Ubuntu, Ancestral Memory, and Sankofa:

Cultural Meaning Making, the participants live through the definitions of these African-centered concepts to connect, reflect and embrace their understanding in new ways.

From their perceptions, the importance of these holistic African-centered experiences brought them to a place where processing, creating, and implementing the work they learned comes with honoring their spiritual essence by providing caring relationships critical to each participant's success. Within the interview process, I strived to create safe and liberating moments to discuss specific topics that carefully allowed each participant to reflect deeply and consider the multitude of possibilities of their experience in ways that highlight generations of elders' teachings in their community. This act of reflection was the untying of spiritual and mental knots that held on to traditions and rituals from sub-Saharan areas of Africa. These moments were healing and often revealing, which anchored each participant to their roots from where they found the seed of their existence. This is Ancestral Memory, Ubuntu, and Sankofa.

They do not happen in isolation as this process did not happen in isolation; it was a continuous thoughtful experience taken seriously and approached with care and commitment. As all things in cultural traditions, there are phases in one's life that allows them to transition with a newfound way for wisdom, growth, and understanding, and the Rites of Passage program gave them all such foundation as Oluremi express in his critical reflection:

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“Rites of Passage is a program or a coming of age... It is a system to usher people from one stage of their lives to another, preparing them for the next stage in life. So, you have the Rites of Passage to prepare young adults for adulthood... Prepare children for young adulthood. Rites of Passage to prepare young men for... Men to be elders and grandparents. I think there are Rites of Passage for different stages in life... Different transitions. But yeah, Rites of Passage is something to prepare people for one stage of their lives to be prepared for the stage... The next stage.”-(Oluremi)

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CHAPTER 6. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Therefore, our first step must be to re-educate ourselves, to regain our former attitude of mind.

In our traditional African society, we are individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellowmen- Julius K. Nyerere

Introduction

This research was conducted to understand better the relationship between lived experiences of youth of African descent and the cultural emancipatory methods of a community- based organization in Brooklyn, New York. Though it is extensive, robust theoretical literature that makes a case for liberatory approaches to education, the empirical literature provides insufficient insight into the enactment of these models and, more importantly, how it affects their lived experiences as adults. As such, we know little about whether or how students’ worldviews and conceptions of their agency may evolve because they participated in an African-centered learning environment. Moreover, existing scholarship does not account for how African pedagogies and cultural teaching practices are bounded but overall distinct between cultural programs within the same organization. This study deeply investigates this phenomenon by examining African descent people as they reflect on their youth's past experiences in an ROP program.

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As the study was guided by one overarching question: How do African-centered rites of passage programs influence the daily lives of participants who graduated from Ilé-Ifẹ̀, a community-based African-centered organization; the key findings of this study indicated three overarching themes: (a) Ancestral Memory, (b) Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility, and (c)

Sankofa: Critical Reflection. Each theme provides a deeper understanding of how African descent youth make meaning of their experience by critically reflecting on their transitions from children to adults in an ROP program.

Aligned with the theoretical foundation for this research and the study’s literature review, the findings revealed that people of African descent are shaped by an African epistemological paradigm that allows them to rethink, restructure and realign themselves with African cultural practices that consist of spiritually connecting to ancestral practices that consciously and unconsciously influence their understanding of their identity, and their collective role and responsibilities within society. Moreover, the act of critically reflecting invokes a sense of agency in their personal and professional lives.

The findings suggest that many participants enjoyed their experiences within the ROP program and believe they have a role in co-constructing their learning experience. Many of the instructors were like family and held the title of Mama, Brother, Sister, Iya, Baba (mother and father in the Yoruba language) as a level of respect for their age and knowledge. The participants express that they benefited from positive humanizing interactions. The findings confirm the research of Billings (1995), Hilliard (1995), and Shujaa (1994), whose discussion and scholarship suggest that African American children do well when their cultural, socioeconomic, communities are taken into consideration. This finding coincides with the assumption of the theoretical framework of Afrocentricity and the African worldview. The findings confirm that

139 children of African ancestry tend to have a better learning experience that develops the students’ sense of awareness of themselves, Black people, and their community.

The findings also negated some critiques of Afrocentric pedagogy. Some critiques were negated more commonly than others. One such critique is that Afrocentric pedagogy models tend to focus on discipline rather than students’ learning experience (Grant & Sleeter, 1995). This critique was negated because the participants alluded to their overall experience from the pedological practices they encountered. Another critique is Gayles (2008) identifies the tendency for Afrocentricity to promote essentialist notions of the Black experience, discounting the

“ongoing fluidity of Black life” (153). The finding in this study highlights the fluidity of their experience by showcasing how they make meaning of various stages of their life. Also, the findings indicate that obtaining knowledge of one's cultural history and identity is not seen as an individual goal but as a collective responsibility as they continue to grapple with the meaning of their experiences related to their future goals and dreams. This in itself is closely aligned with the emerging theme of Ubuntu as they consider their collective responsibility as it relates to their peers. The participants offer perspectives regarding the lived experience of participating in an

African-centered program and reveal rich insights into the lived experience of an African- centered identity. The findings will be discussed later in this chapter and interpreted in conjunction with relevant scholarly research.

Rooted in an Afrocentric worldview, my interpretations of the findings highlight the history, educational process, and social context that influence how the participants make meaning of their identity through their lived experiences as youth. I found compelling evidence related to how each participant frames their understanding of culture, identity, race, and African- centered programming. This included but was not limited to their sense of individual or

140 collective agency. In their interviews, each participant referred to their experiences in almost identical ways using similar proverbs, sayings, and universal African truths when describing their connection to spirituality, cultural practices, and perceived obstacles. Also, this study repeatedly referenced their commitment to African culture and community, which were consistent with how they described their daily interactions within a larger society and their rituals connected to their ethics and morals, which guide them through life.

Interpretation of Findings Ancestral Memory

Throughout the study, the participants referenced Ilé-Ifẹ̀ as this creative, living, breathing space that has survived through time, and its practices are memories that are woven into the various parts of the ROP program. The findings related to this theme address the sub- questions: How do graduates of a community-based African-centered education program make meaning of their experiences in the program, and how they experience participating in a community-based African-centered education program influenced their thinking about race, culture, and identity? Through African philosophy, cosmology, and local and global program offerings, participants explained how they made meaning of their experiences by obtaining a holistic African-centered experience from the foundations of their community experiences in

Brooklyn and through each transitional step within their “Rites of Passage.” These experiences culminated in ways that lead them to fully participate in a traditional ceremony on the continent of Africa. Within these experiences, participants were made aware of the inadequacy of their previous educational experiences as they had an opportunity to understand the richness of their

African pedological experiences. Their past that was regulated and limited in the historical narratives became more distant as they fully embraced this cultural experience. The ROP program was a paradigm shift in how they see themselves as African people in the world. Cokely

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(2005) reiterates this paradigm shift in suggesting that “an understanding of African American identity must focus on an ethnic and cultural identity that is rooted in an Afrocentric worldview paradigm that critically examines and affirms African cultural values as forming the foundation of African American identity and culture” (p. 518). All the participants committed these experiences to their memories. It changed their perspective on history as they understood their ancestors' narratives and experiences, whose teachings were passed down to them. Closely aligned with the literature, Nora (1989) explained the phenomenon of memory exceeds the purview of history. In this particular context, perhaps more than in any other, African cultural memory dynamics involve much more than reaching into a past; they also engage the present, insofar as the traditional culture upon which they are situated remains a vibrant contemporary reality.

The participants confirmed Vega’s (1999) argument that spiritual and historical ancestral memory that reverberates finds expression in the elaborate artistic, creative symbols, icons, dances, songs, tales, music, and objects that harness its energy force. This argument was confirmed by how the participants expressed the value in their learning related to the cultural arts programing and the ROP program. Although they seem different, incorporating symbols, sayings, dance, history, arts, and music was integrated into all programming. Furthermore, the participants explained that their experiences reflected African practices of the past. The memory of this practice is a part of a cycle of lived experiences that each participant carries on. Each memory was connected to an African expression that can be seen as a continuous continuum like

“the circle.”

The participants recognized that these sacred ancestral energies represent a higher power and are interconnected in all relationships closely aligned with Myers' (1988) explanation of the

142 harmonious spiritual relationship between one's ancestors provides individuals with a sense of purpose and connection with family and community. Mhiti (1969) explains within several

African families, such spiritual connections that the participants explained such as the act of prayer and calling the names of the ancestors whose shoulders they walk on to carry on traditions of the past helps to bring back them symbolically their ancestors to the places from which we were taken.

This finding is concurrent with the literature in Nobles (1998) explanation of the concept of spirit as the energy and life force or power that is both the inner essence and the outer development of positive self-esteem and social competence which envelops human beingness, thus “for the African to be human is to be a spirit” (p. 193). The findings from this study also confirm and reveal the importance of the mechanisms that convey sacred meaning to spiritual expression that were ancient traditions in Africa, which serves as transmitters of historical memory and a deeper understanding of oneself.

Interpretation of Findings Ubuntu: Collective Responsibility

This study findings help to confirm literature around character formation as the cornerstone of traditional African learning (Fafunwa, 1974). Within this development of African identity, the participants became closely aligned with African concepts like Ubuntu. Participants emphasized their connection with the concepts of Ubuntu, being it is one of Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s advertised core values. This further answers the research question regarding how graduates of the ROP program see their thinking and engagement connected to its vision, mission, and values. The findings supported Bangura's (2005) argument that the principles of Ubuntu encourage families to work together and to be held accountable for one another’s participation and involvement.

What is encouraged is cooperation rather than competition. One of the major tenets of Ubuntu

143 hinges upon its consensus-building (Bangura 2019). The findings are aligned with this argument because of how the participants embraced African traditional culture in a capacity for the pursuit of consensus and reconciliation of meaning-making.

The findings presented highlighted the unwritten agreement, consensus, or group cohesion reached in the ROP program. Being their “brother” or “sister,” the family nexus is aligned with the literature on the concept of Ubuntu which speaks of the desire to agree or understand one other provides an opportunity to create a community that enforces group solidarity. Ubuntu requires authentic respect for human and individual rights and related values and an honest appreciation of differences (Bangura 2005). These activities that the participants spoke of were employed in various forms of cultural materials in innovative ways, through the

“all-white” attire and ritualistic ways of opening and closing a class, traditional African dances as a tool to provide the basis for determining rhythm and synchrony in a unit.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the concept of Ubuntu has the potential to uncover the African by incorporating the ideals of African communalism, which the participants referred to as the tendencies among Africans to attach strong allegiance to their communities which is characterized by cooperation and ownership of resources by members of a community (Heinz, 2006). The findings are closely aligned with Letseka. (2011) Ubuntu's concept relates to educational spaces that provide indigenous knowledge that is important for integrating into our African conception of inclusion, promoting inclusivity, equality, and social justice in educational systems. According to Lefa (2015), Ubuntu in educational spaces allows learners to acknowledge humanity's humanity and others. Participants expressed how they encourage each other to work cooperatively by sharing and engaging with others in the ROP program, which is closely aligned with Heinz's argument that express how Ubuntu practiced in

144 educational spaces is described as an inclusive approach that calls for dignity and respect in our mutual relationships with others.

The literature showed that Ubuntu ties communities together that fully embrace and value follow the practices of compassion, kindness, and respect, which are at the core of making educational spaces where the culture of teaching and culture and learning occur

(Broodryk, 2006). The participants expressed how Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and, more specifically, the ROP program reflects the values and beliefs that the instructors considered worthy and transmitted those values and ethics as in their learning experiences. As described by Broodryk (2006), the core values of Ubuntu in education provide a supportive basis or the frame of reference from which both instructor and learner engage in the learning process. The participants explained how one of the core values of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ being Ubuntu embraces all programing, including the ROP program, in ways where there was a collective understanding between ethics, morals, and values.

According to Letseka (2011), the whole education process centers around Ubuntu as a philosophy or set of ethical principles that capture Africans' belief system according to which people take responsibility to others and accept others' authority and guidance progress. This lifelong understanding of Ubuntu's concept in educational spaces offers a holistic view of the participants' lived experiences in the ROP program.

Interpretation of Findings on Sankofa: Critical Reflection

According to Temple (2010), the Adinkra, the rich cultural heritage of Ghana, uses pictorial images to convey Akan life's wisdom, has remarkably influenced the culture of across the African Diaspora and the United States with the concept of Sankofa. Sankofa, which in conventional translation means “go back and fetch it,” “return to your past,” and “it is not taboo to go back and retrieve what you have forgotten or lost,” has emerged as a diasporic practice in

145 the ROP program. As I consider the research question regarding what about the experience of participating in a community-based African-centered education program influenced their level of engagement professionally, socially, and politically with race, culture, and identity; the findings in this study exemplify the concept of Sankofa as a critical reflection within the ways the participants explained their experience as students of African pedagogy and learning praxis in ways that allowed them to make meaning of their professionally, socially, and politically systems they experience. The challenges of race, culture, and identity in their work environment. The power and humanizing experiences of being their authentic selves presented a sense of power in various ways. The participants confirmed Murrell's (2002) position that an African-centered pedagogy is a deep-seated understanding of African American experiences, culture, and heritage and how it informs successful teaching of Africana children.

Additionally, in concurrence with the literature Murrell (2002) notes that pedagogy includes the awareness of their own culturally mediated values and an understanding of how success and failure are rooted in larger societal and institutional structures. As adults, the participants saw themselves as a part of the larger American society. However, they understood the histories of social movements and activists, local and aboard, who fought to sustain their culture. The participants in the IAMB ROP program called the names of scholars and leaders like

John Henrik Clarke, Marcus Garvey, Shaka Zulu, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Zumbi, and

Aha Narmer. As the participants reflected on this practice which was a ritual for the opening and closing of their and ending of their daily learning experiences, that was a part of their daily classroom rituals, participants reflected upon reignited the lessons learned about these individuals and many others, allowing them to deeply reflect on the wisdom and courage that took for them to be contributors to history, more importantly, how they are to continue to push

146 forth and contribute to the legacy of the past. The findings in this study are closely aligned with

George III's (2021) argument that African-centered pedagogy is necessary to disconnect from contemporary educational practices to appropriately address the social, cultural, and historical context of education for children of African descent.

The transformative experience of reflecting happens on the inside as it is on the outside.

As the participants reflected on people's history, they learned in their ROP pledge, they understood who these people were and the importance of the movement. For example, as participants critically reflected on marching for civil rights and social justice, they are not enacting this not just for millions and millions gone, but they are marching for children unborn.

For the future, they have connected this past, present, and this future by trying to keep track of the unjustified suffering and the unnecessary misery, the unwarranted pain that still exists in the world. The participants mentioned how critical it was to reflect on the cultural Afrocentric experiences because it allowed them to understand their identity and outlook in life in multiple ways.

These findings are closely aligned with the understanding of the literature around

Afrocentric education and how the approach is much more than emancipatory or liberatory pedagogy (Freire & Shor 1987), for it is imbued with self-reflection and a critical reflection of the past for social action against Eurocentric ways of knowing (Ellesworth 1989; Giroux &

McLaren 1986, Gordon, 1990). The findings also align with George III's (2021) argument that

Afrocentricity's theoretical concept as an intellectual paradigm must address the structural impediments to African students' education by engaging them to identify with their history, heritage, and culture. Each participant engaged with making meaning of their identity by

147 reflecting on Afrocentric education's values as a liberation tool and as counter knowledge to fight

Eurocentric ideological domination in education (Gordon 1990).

Contributions

This research aims to contribute to education, particularly in examining how people of

African descent understand their experiences and connection to the Diaspora in urban places.

This study is particularly relevant for community-based organizations, schools, and programs that claim an African-centered focus wherein the concepts of race, ethnicity, and identity are central to their mission and pedagogical practices. This study contributes to the literature by further examining individuals who critically examine their experiences within an African- centered program as a youth to process their African Diasporic identity as adults (Gordon &

Anderson, 1999).

Greater inquiry is needed to understand how these particular learning environments, as communities, reify and challenge normative beliefs around race, gender, class, and African identity. Though some studies have advanced the pedagogical merits of African-centered schools and pedagogy, they have insufficiently interrogated how it impacts their lives as adults.

Moreover, further investigating the underlying factors that inform their identity construction within these spaces (Henry 1998; Murrell 1998; Pollard & Ajirotutu 1990; Weber 1993). My research examines some of these dynamics within the context of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Cultural Arts Academy and contributes to this scholarship by highlighting these experiences. Also, this study seeks to contribute by documenting the voices that reflect a long history of independent educational practices in African-centered communities in New York City,

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Limitations

I come to this work with a previously established relationship with the dissertation site. I have served as a volunteer, a Rites of Passage Instructor, and a Director of Programs and worked with Ilé-Ifẹ̀ on several external projects. Therefore, there was the potential for personal bias and perceptions to intercede the study (Patton, 2015); thus, I placed specific measures to reduce the possibilities of bias with this understanding. In this study, I came with a deep understanding of the programmatic structure which led me to pinpoint specific questions. With this understanding,

I adhered to a strict interview protocol, including using an interview script with predetermined questions and averting from interceding with my thoughts and impressions during the interviews.

I journaled during the interview process to examine my thoughts so that bias was appropriately managed. Also, I understood the duality of my role as an employee and researcher could have potentially shaped how participants answered questions. I was conscious of my role as a worker and researcher throughout the data collection process. I made sure to state the importance of keeping conversations confidential and ensured that participants’ thoughts and perceptions would not be shared with program members, alumni, or community members.

Other limitations of this study may include not utilizing youth as participants in this study to understand how they make sense of the current perceptions and ideas of Afrocentric learning. While I would have wanted to do this for comparison, time constraints prevented me from including youth. Since there is minimal literature about the adults who participated in

Afrocentric community-based educational spaces, I decided to solely focus on the experiences and sense-making of the adults who graduated from the ROP program. There are not as many

African-centered schools in the United States, and many programs are declining. Those that do exist who serve vulnerable populations do not have uniform practices and ideologies. Therefore,

149 my study cannot be generalized to all community-based spaces serving African descent youth; however, internal generalizability may be appropriate for this study. The organization might find some of the data useful for their work. Additionally, other community-based programs may identify some of the participants' experiences and challenges in this study.

Another limitation of the study was the separate cohorts of students within the ROP program. Specifically the I Am My Brother (IAMB) students and the Sisters in Sisterhood (SIS) students. Several assumptions would need to be explored further within a gendered rite of passage that specifically examines the primary defining identity markers of the transition to manhood and womanhood. Although this study did not focus on gender, surprisingly, it did not appear as a salient theme. Also, there are assumptions on how gender is viewed from an

American patriarchal paradigm different from an African epistemology where power and privilege in families are not universally gender-specific. In some African cultures, specifically the Yoruba people of Nigeria, the family's fundamental organizing principle is seniority based on relative age and not gender; kinship categories encode seniority, not gender. However, for this study, I specifically examined the overall experiences from childhood to adulthood, which limited the study.

As I interviewed the participants, I realized that they all participated in multiple programs with the organization. One of the limitations of this study was the failure to capture the potential of investigating their experiences within the various programs within Ilé-Ifẹ̀. As mentioned in chapter four, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ comprises a youth ensemble, a cultural arts program, rites of passage, a

Marcus Garvey (history) institute, financial literacy program, and many other community-based and in-school programming. What presented itself as a limitation was separating the experiences that the participants had in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ overall compared to their ROP experiences. The participants

150 had a wealth of experiences because they did not only participate in the ROP program but also in various programming simultaneously. Often, the participants would merge the experiences. I found that the ROP program can be considered the core of all experiences within the organization. For example, ROP's concepts are expanded upon in other parts of the program, creating a holistic experience where no topic is isolated and fragmented.

The last limitation presented itself in the reflections of the participant experience. While the participants continued to exert their childhood experiences, they made sense of their experience in real-time. As they continued to reflect and dig deeper into their experience critically, there was not much time to unpack these experiences in ways where the participant could connect all the experiences to the present. Therefore, the question remains how far the past can be invoked to legitimize the present and how far it can function as a practical reference in African endeavor's contemporary circumstances. Moreover, I continued to consider how systemic oppression for people of African descent constantly plagues the mind of all. Fanon

(1963) in The Wretched of the Earth notes that cultural imperialism is the worst form of imperialism. It effectively destroys the memory, values, and unique consciousness of the colonized and forces an alien memory on him. In Fanon’s words

Every colonized people… whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the

death and burial of its local originality – finds itself face to face with the language of the

civilizing nation; that is, with the mother country's culture. The colonized is elevated

above his jungle status (in his eyes) in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s

cultural standards (Fanon 1963, 18).

This tension exists and was constantly challenged in various aspects of the

interview process. However, each participant acknowledged the deep-rooted aspects of

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society and how it helps them cultivate a sense of core values to combat cultural

genocide.

In-Depth Discussion of Analysis: Making Meaning of the Case It is not really a “Negro revolution” that is upsetting the country. What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity. If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody’s history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad. -James Baldwin (“A Talk to Teachers’ Delivered October 16, 1963, as “The Negro Child – His Self-Image”)

This case study has brought forth many conceptual themes founded with an African epistemological paradigm framed in ways that highlight African indigenous traditions that counter white supremacy, Eurocentric ideologies, and cultural denigration. Each participant invited me into their lives, where they shared experiences that reconstructed African traditions in ways that allowed me to understand the meaning of their memories better. This process in itself was not merely about critically reflecting on a particular moment in time. It was more so a deep practice to confront themselves as children and reexamine the atmosphere and their climate.

While some childhood experiences seeped into African indigenous systems that decolonized their minds, the realities of the world still existed for them in various ways. I found myself challenged by these multiple realities. They took me on the past and present journey while questioning how they departed from a Eurocentric nature of knowledge construction while embracing an African sense of totality and wholeness within a network of multiple and particular fields of African knowledge.

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As the participants continue to engage in the interview process, they re-conceptualize and re-Africanize their educational process. This process is two-fold, one from the foundation of a

U.S. educational system that has perpetuated oppression based upon illegitimate forms of exclusion such as race, class, gender, sexual and religious orientation, and two, from the foundations of African-centered education that focuses on cultural needs, circumstances and situations within Black communities (Lomotay, 2020). Seeing themselves being a part of, and in most cases, a product and a victim of two conflicting systems is an ongoing continuous process to grapple with something more affirming to their identity while existing in a world where resistance to oppressive ideologies is a constant everyday struggle.

Reflecting, remembering, and reconnecting with the rituals and ceremonies that define their lived experiences within the ROP program was a transformative agent that reclaimed their

African identity. It also broke away the Eurocentric constraints and brought forth an alternate perspective to make meaning of themselves in the world today. This reminder did not essentialize their perspective on the African knowledge system, neither did it bring them to criticism of eurocentrism in particular, but it brought them back to a safe physical location that embodied spiritual and African traditional aspects that grounded them, where African history became the foundation of their existence. The reclamation of African cultural systems from historical concepts, perspectives, rituals, and ancestral reverence brought back memories of spiritual leaders, activities who were (are) their teachers like Mama Faybiene Miranda- (Iba ye t’orun), which translates to: is paid the homage of respect Homage to the generations that met generations in heaven (Mason, 1985). Those moments in which they call the names to invoke the philosophy and principles of ancient wisdom taught them as a youth as they relive their life once again in a cultural space where they could safely believe in how they viewed the universe.

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According to the participants, this sacred educational space is designed to awaken and stimulate the ancestral memory through a pledge, song, dance, coupled with practices enacted in a circle where healing and creation occur. This collective communal experience fused with formal and informal education is situated to encourage youth to understand African philosophy as co-constructors of knowledge. As the mission, vision, and goals of the ROP program are to provide a foundational practice for their roles as future leaders, it comes with a large sense of responsibility. Their responsibility is based on their family, community, and culture. With this understanding, they incorporate a critical stance towards their society and their roles within it.

During the interview process, they critically reflected on the nature of power/authority and even human rights from an African paradigm lens. The participants could not help but notice the barriers that power structures have on their lives since they were young, as these systems still are a part of their reality today. As adults, these moments of reflection have a new meaning and understanding in which they begin to unpack the systems of oppression and the trauma it has cause for people of African descent. This, in turn, strengthens their dedication and appreciation of their Africa-centered lived experiences.

With this charge, their African identity is strengthened by creating – or reinvigorating - a localized system within their community. The participants speak about this transformation as a continuous process that is necessary because “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde, 2007, p. 112). Lorde (2007) argues that a hegemonic foundation cannot truly challenge oppression, but she believes that a different ethos is required to facilitate liberation. In part, the participants see how a Eurocentric system can only enable them to assimilate an African system that gives them the tools to engage in liberatory

154 practices. I believe my findings further examines the liberating practice of an African paradigm where I am privileged to witness the participants paint a picture of an environment where it is normative to resist a normative teacher-led schooling system that embraces hierarchical features such as principals, policies, and a particular student/teacher relationship. This provided a deeper understanding of the ancient practices that reflect the cultures of minoritized, immigrant communities subjected to authorities in one of the most diverse cities globally, New York, significantly a place that functions as the metaphoric heart of the hegemonic institution. That is, however, still one of the most radical places where the hierarchy can be leveled and where all the community members believe they can be the force behind critical transformation through the love and celebration of culture.

Implications

"There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."- Chinua Achebe (1994 interview with the Paris

Review)

The current research is not simply a reflection on the lived experiences of youth of

African descent, and it is a study that has the potential to enrich and broaden current understandings of families, counselors, students, educators, and community members' experiences of African-centered education. It can add to the current literature about how educational experiences are internalized and sustained in practices as children navigate childhood transitions into adulthood. The concept of the ROP program is far greater than an educational experience, and it is also a spiritual, holistic experience that offers a historical perspective on nation-states, ethnic, religious, and organized institutions with multiple perspectives of intergenerational practice to socialize a new generation as members of a larger

155 community (Lee, 2020). This has implications for students, teachers, and administrators to offer a different perspective of their educational experience's potentially long-lasting effects. Although there is a gap in the literature that speaks about how adults who participated in an African- centered ROP program understand their educational experiences, this study helps us to understand students’ experiences from various vantage points and the implications it has on their lives.

Implications for Practice

This study illuminated the value of an African-centered pedagogy and practice, and the implications give deeper meaning to teacher-student relationships and community participation amongst students, teachers, and parents. As the participants reflect on their experiences as students, they frequently stressed the emotional connection of being in an environment that felt like family. With this understanding, other schools can explore how students can be supported by caring, multifaceted relationships with their teachers and peers that extend beyond the school and into the community. Implications for practice involve instructors (re)conceptualizing pedagogy and curriculum and how to prepare to engage in work with African-centered pedagogy.

Instructors who embrace African teaching philosophies are not enough; embracing relationships that extended beyond school hours and school grounds is vital in promoting such practices; however, there is a need for a curriculum to teach the youth of African descent.

There is a historic weakness of the movement since the 1960s, and what has been published is only merely centered in social studies and often at times provides a blueprint or a narrative of events around pivotal men but not an actual curriculum, and it is not clear how widely it has been implemented across institutions (Asante 1988; Giddings, 2001; Hillard &

Lenoard; 1990; Shockley & Lomotey, 2020; Lee, 2020). Therefore, teachers and schools who

156 want to implement African-centered education curricula must-read books about African contributions in these domains and then figure out how to translate them into actual curricular activities projects as a mere reaction to meet the needs of the youth of African descent. This presents a major concern on how these lessons are taught. The lack of deep understanding of the meaning and understanding of African people and spiritual concepts is necessary within an

African paradigm. This suggests that an Afrocentric education is not an activity that provides a single story that essentializes the celebration of culture but rather a system that must be carefully examined to offer a robust pedological model for knowledge production in cultural communities.

Implications for Theory

Within all the academic fields of study, there is a deep history of disciplinary knowledge that entails epistemology, methods of reasoning, and how it is represented through the types of text, use of language, and forms of external representation (Goldman et al., 2016). Afrocentricity and other Afrocentric theories aim to critique hegemonic perspectives and any normative truth as a universal paradigm by centering, understanding, and incorporating African culture into African

Americans’ lives. The Afrocentric Worldview and ideology as a theory describe African

Americans’ connection with pre-colonial African cultures as a point of analysis by closely examining traditional African values and philosophies (Boykin, 1997) describes ways in which

African Americans have unintentionally retained elements of their ancestral African worldview which allows them to operate out of a sense of self that is fundamentally grounded in African cultural values (Baldwin, 1985; Azibo, 1998). The implications for theory are to push forth the intellectual and philosophical foundations upon which people of African ancestry can create their own scientific and moral criteria for authenticating human processes' reality (Nobles, 1998).

Some theorists juxtapose African and European cultural worldviews, compare the two, and

157 emphasize their incompatibility (Kambon, 1996). However, this study allows us to theorize an

African worldview in ways that examine the complexity of reflection, collective responsibility, and the dynamics and understanding the spirit of culture in various ways.

Ani (1980) suggests that an understanding of human existence's essentially spiritual nature is the most common feature of African people’s worldview. She argues that spiritual power has enabled African people’s survival through such tragedies as the American institution of slavery. This perspective emphasizes the importance of revisiting the theories that highlight interdependence, rather than independence, and interrelatedness, rather than separateness, and it is captured in the West African concept of Ubuntu “I am because we are and because we are, therefore, I am” (Mbiti, 1970). Therefore, people within a family or community are accountable for one another spiritually, physically, and emotionally as they share lived experiences intending to lift each other as they climb. Although the empirical support for this work is limited, the literature offers conceptual frameworks for applying an African-centered worldview. The implications for the advancement of theoretical frameworks could help develop interventions to promote family connections, pride, spiritual healing, and identity development.

Moreover, as the interest in African centered worldview grows among researchers and practitioners, social science literature would likely benefit from a deeper understanding of the lived experience of African-centered identity and how it influences their lives. While the theories of an African-centered worldview can highlight a particular lifestyle and outlook on the world, it can also help one better understand African-centered values to resist oppression and seek liberation. Future research could explore this case with a larger sample size, possibly comparing current youth with adults' narratives and perspectives. Future studies could also be longitudinal and possibly comparing African-centered schools and experience within various cohorts based

158 on age. Future research should investigate other factors that can contribute to achievement, such as curriculum and instruction, theory and practice that were not a part of this investigation.

Possibly examine the various aspects of the ROP program and the overlapping programmatic offerings in detail to further understand the case as a whole and for future research, investigating the curriculum and the various cultural influences and implementing the organization's approach.

Although patterns of gender differences in racial identity, cultural values were not closely examined in this study, several questions are important revolving around gender and sexuality.

The ROP program is constructed within two cohorts, I Am My Brother (IAMB) and Sisters in

Sisterhood (SIS). Future research can closely examine the social construction of manhood and womanhood and how is the organization contributing to these constructions within an African paradigm. Some questions to be considered are, how does Ilé-Ifẹ̀ convey in their ROP practices prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate to their gender? More specifically, how do Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ROP programs contribute to the social construction of gender and sexuality? What tensions exist between the social construction of gender and sexuality within an

Afrocentric worldview compared to a Eurocentric worldview. Future research should also utilize different methodological approaches to enrich our understanding of African-centered ROP program means for children and adults of African descent.

Conclusion

“Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.”―

Wherever Africans live in the world today, they are at the mercy of educational systems that miseducate them and misorient them (Asante, 2007). In 1930, Carter G. Woodson’s classic book, The Miseducation of the Negro, recognized the fundamental issues surrounding education

159 with African people in America. He understood that African Americans were educated away from their traditions and culture and attached to European culture. He highlighted that education for African Americans had to deal with the Africans' historical experience both in Africa and in

America to be substantive and meaningful within American society. In investigating an African- centered organization that prides themselves on their connections to the diaspora, I have found that Woodson’s ideas and theories still exist today. Hegemonic education can only exist so long as true and accurate information is kept from the people. If we understood the complete truth about human history and unfold the deep inadequacies of African people's knowledge and their history related to education, we would embrace an African-centered paradigm's concepts and ideologies.

According to Asante (2007), there is a deep inadequacy in African people’s knowledge about their history. Our children have little understanding of the nature of the capture, transport, and enslavement of Africans. How many of us were truly taught the horrors of being taken, shipped naked for several days across the ocean, seeing others leap singing to their deaths, being broken by abuse, indignities of all kind, and then dehumanized to a thing without a name? This idea is triggering as it should be, for it exposes the historical narratives of how the barbaric treatment began, and how African dignity was stolen, and how culture was destroyed.

However, our history does not begin in the middle passage as it relates to America. I use this space to uphold the truth that I died with my ancestors next to the dreaded middle passage ships. Only a few Africans had an opportunity to record their experiences which Jacob and Ruth

Weldon, an African couple, give the most detailed horrific account ever discovered (Feldstein,

1971). Also, there are narratives from captains that describe Africans' horrors being brought to

America and the Caribbean islands. From what was recorded through centuries of enslavement

160 and discrimination, our ancestors vowed in those dark, damp hellholes of horror that we would be free one day. Therefore, it becomes an obligation of enslaved Africans' descendants to uncover the stories that children are systematically denied, both in the diaspora in Africa.

Subsequently, white children do not know these stories. If they were, taught the Afrocentric perspective on the great enslavement, I suspect that we would have a different response to diversity and equity and liberatory practices in education.

In the spirit of Sankofa, remembrance is necessary for humility and understanding. Such monstrous human brutality should remind the world of how humans have often violated each other. Reflecting, remembering, and feeling the past pain helps us understand the present and plan for the future. Teaching about the transatlantic slave trade is just important for some for the same reasons because it essentially underscores the enormity of Africans' dislocations, physically, psychologically, spiritually, and economically. Without this understanding, Africans' historical experiences cannot truly make any headway in dealing with the problems of the present. African-centered education allows us to investigate deeply how Africans contribute to human history. More importantly, it uncovers that African civilizations predate any other concepts or ideas that we know about human origins, which can be found on the continent of

Africa. This is true whether you take on archaeological evidence or biological evidence. Let us leave Greece and the Greeks and return to the study of Egyptians in Egypt. African-centered education let us study the first : Kagemni, Khunanup, Ptahhotep, Kete, and Seti

(Asante, 2007). Let us deeply bring back the pieces of our disjointed educational system to bring forth the relationship of Africa to the rest of human history.

With our enslavement came an attack on our psychological and spiritual beings.

Afrocentric education gives us freedom and faith in creating spaces to educate ourselves in ways

161 where our cultural identities are not lost. We need to divest ourselves of our culture to see ourselves as African and human. In some cases, we have been mesmerized, tranquilized, and paralyzed when it comes to education for children of African descent. We must face up to defy the predictions made by normative ideologies based on white supremacy. We have been our history. That has been our history. An African-centered paradigm breaks away from oppressive ideologies. It allows people of African descent to see how their ancestors constructed schools and systems far greater than any normative educational experience that holistically embraces youth development as they transition into adulthood.

From this study, we can see how an African-centered ROP program provides a stepping stone for youth to develop along the rich lineage of African and African American leaders, innovators, and freedom fighters. They are connected with the community through their practice to cultivate youth with a drive for critical community-building with a deep sense of purpose and responsibility for each other's growth and development. Focusing on their cultural identity is interrelated and connected with the prominent descriptions of the African-centered worldview ingrained within the curriculum and practiced within day-to-day interactions. There is a symbol of resistance to liberate ourselves in our minds of African and white people in the United States upon accepting Africa as a central idea to African people in terms of place, location, foundation, history, as a starting point for any discussion. We must remove the divisions and see only the advances by dismantling white supremacist teachings in education. The information must not be distorted or suppressed. Books should be written. If they are written, they should be published and provided for everyone in every school district and educational space.

Although many have documented how the education system has long deeply rooted history failed people of African descent, there is still a belief that Black children will only be

162 able to produce and compete against their counterparts in the global world stage if their education is reconceptualized into something that reflects African culture which can be more revolutionarily and liberating in today's society and an African-centered education is the solution to these issues (Afrik, 1981, Akoto, 1992, Anderson, 2001, Asante, 1980, 1990, 1995, Brookins,

1984, doughty, 1973, Hale, 1982, Hillard, 1987, Kunjufu, 1995, Madhubuti, 1973, Lomotey,

1978, 1992, Ridley, 1971, Satterwhite, 1971). The Afrocentric curriculum aims not to divide

America and make America flourish as it ought to flourish by embracing multiple cultural perspectives. Afrocentric education is, therefore, a fundamental necessity for anyone declaring competency in almost any subject in America. Otherwise, the person remains essentially ignorant of the major portion of the world, for multiculturalism to be authentic, it must consider

Afrocentric perspectives, which is the proper steppingstone from African American culture to true multiculturalism. It is important not to exclude Afrocentric perspectives as it allows us to see the migration of cultural movement. If this step is skipped, then we are likely to see an idea of multiculturalism as defined through the eyes of Eurocentric ideologies without substantial

African American information being infused in the curriculum. This can be avoided and should be avoided for the mutual benefit of all children of African descent.

Revisiting the true essence of Afrocentric education is to see how African people have contributed to the world's perspective. However, it must be contributed from a place of love by grasping the involvement of parents, teachers, and community leaders in all school and educational programming. Love has always been the driving force behind these concepts and ideas of Afrocentric education. Most simplistically, to properly educate a child of African descent, they must be loved. Not only loved and supported, which is needed for education but loved in a way where they are not objects or subjects as it relates to their educational

163 experiences, but they are a part of the subject which highlights and celebrates the influence that

African culture has had and continue to have on the world.

This understanding of the ideas and scopes in objectives can identify ways for us to understand our history, understand our foundations, and inherently gives us a true understanding of liberation without inequities. It is until we find ourselves in these places where we can understand the scope of a truly unified nation built on education and not schooling. We owe this to our ancestors, and we owe this to our families; we owe this to those who have not been born yet. Rightfully so, we are the ones who will continue to dictate how the world looks tomorrow.

In the true essence of Ubuntu, we can only be a reflection of each other, “I am because we are.”

So my question is, who are you?

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APPENDIX A. RECRUITMENT EMAIL

Dear Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Alumni,

My name is Alade S. McKen, and I am a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in the Social Cultural Studies of Education program at Iowa State University. I invite you to participate in a research study about your experiences in RITES of passage. As an Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Alum, you have an important perspective to share with your community. To be eligible, you must: (a) be a graduate from RITES, and (b) be 18 years of age or older.

Participation would involve completing one interview and one demographic form. The total time commitment should be 75-105 minutes and completed during the spring 2020 semester.

Participation is voluntary and confidential. This research study has been approved by the Iowa State University Institutional Review Board (19-568). It is supervised by Dr. Katy Swalwell (Associate Professor in the School of Education at Iowa State University, [email protected]).

To participate or to learn more, please contact me at [email protected].

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Brother Alade Shola McKen (Principal Investigator, Iowa State University)

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APPENDIX B. INFORMED CONSENT FORM

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

Title of Study: "UBUNTU" I Am Because We Are: A Case Study Examining The Experiences of an African-Centered Rites of Passage Program within a Community Based Organization.

Investigators: Alade S. McKen, M.S. Ed (Ph.D. Candidate, Iowa State University)

Invitation to be Part of a Research Study

You are invited to participate in a research study. This form has information to help you decide whether or not you wish to participate—please review it carefully. Research studies include only people who choose to take part—your participation is completely voluntary and you can stop at any time.

Please ask the project staff any questions you have about the study or about this form before deciding to participate.

Introduction and Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research study is to examine the experiences of Ile Ife Alumni from the RITES of Passage Program and how do they make meaning of their experiences in their lives today.

Results of this research study will be published in my dissertation. They may also be presented at research and professional conferences and/or published in academic journals and books. Eligibility to Participate

To be eligible, you must: (a) be a graduate from RITES, Sister in Sisterhood (SIS) Program, or I Am My Brother (IAMB) Program and (b) be 18 years of age or older.

You should not participate if you do not meet these requirements.

Description of Study Procedures and Expected Duration of Participation

If you are selected and agree to participate, you will be asked to complete the following procedures: (1) Complete an electronic demographic form via Google Forms and submit it to the interviewer before the interview begins. Completing this form should take approximately 15 minutes. (2) Complete one interview about undergraduate students’ development of critical consciousness via Zoom, FaceTime, Google Hangout, or Skype with the Principal Investigator (Mr. Alade S. McKen). (3) Participation would involve completing one interview. The total time commitment should be 75-105 minutes and will be completed during the spring 2020 semester.

IRB – Informed Consent Template – Standard Format Page 1 of 4 Revised 04.16.2019

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APPENDIX C. RECRUITMENT FLYER

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APPENDIX D. IRB APPROVAL LETTER

Institutional Review Board

Office for Responsible Research Vice President for Research 2420 Lincoln Way, Suite 202 Ames, Iowa 50014 515 294-4566 Date: 12/04/2019

To: Alade McKen Katy Swalwell From: Office for Responsible Research Title: "UBUNTU" I Am Because We Are: A Case Study Examining The Experiences of an African-Centered Rites of Passage Program within a Community Based Organization. IRB ID: 19-568 Submission Type: Initial Submission Exemption Date: 12/04/2019

The project referenced above has been declared exempt from most requirements of the human subject protection regulations as described in 45 CFR 46.104 or 21 CFR 56.104 because it meets the following federal requirements for exemption: 2018 - 1: Research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings that specifically involve normal educational practices that are not likely to adversely impact students' opportunity to learn required educational content or the assessment of educators who provide instruction. This includes most research on regular and special education instructional strategies and research on the effectiveness of or comparing instructional techniques, curricula, or classroom management methods. 2018 - 2 (iii): Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior (including visual or auditory recording) when the information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects can readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects, and an IRB conducts a LIMITED IRB REVIEW to [determine there are adequate provisions to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of the data].

The determination of exemption means that: • You do not need to apply for continuing review. Instead, you will receive a request for a brief status update every three years. The status update is intended to verify that the study is still ongoing.

• You must carry out the research as described in the IRB application. Review by IRB staff is required prior to implementing modifications that may change the exempt status of the research. In general, review is required for any modifications to the research procedures (e.g., method of data collection, nature or scope of information to be collected, nature or duration of behavioral interventions, use of deception, etc.), any change in privacy or confidentiality protections, modifications that result in the inclusion of participants from vulnerable populations, removing plans for informing participants about the study, any change that may increase the risk or discomfort to participants, and/or any change such that the revised procedures do not fall into one or more of the regulatory exemption categories. The purpose of review is to determine if the project still meets the federal criteria for exemption.

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APPENDIX E. IRB APPROVAL LETTER CONTINUATION

• All changes to key personnel must receive prior approval. • Promptly inform the IRB of any addition of or change in federal funding for this study. Approval of the protocol referenced above applies only to funding sources that are specifically identified in the corresponding IRB application. Detailed information about requirements for submitting modifications for exempt research can be found on our website. For modifications that require prior approval, an amendment to the most recent IRB application must be submitted in IRBManager. A determination of exemption or approval from the IRB must be granted before implementing the proposed changes.

Non-exempt research is subject to many regulatory requirements that must be addressed prior to implementation of the study. Conducting non-exempt research without IRB review and approval may constitute non-compliance with federal regulations and/or academic misconduct according to ISU policy.

Additionally: • All research involving human participants must be submitted for IRB review. Only the IRB or its designees may make the determination of exemption, even if you conduct a study in the future that is exactly like this study. • Please inform the IRB if the Principal Investigator and/or Supervising Investigator end their role or involvement with the project with sufficient time to allow an alternate PI/Supervising Investigator to assume oversight responsibility. Projects must have an eligible PI to remain open. • Immediately inform the IRB of (1) all serious and/or unexpected adverse experiences involving risks to subjects or others; and (2) any other unanticipated problems involving risks to subjects or others. • Approval from other entities may also be needed. For example, access to data from private records (e.g., student, medical, or employment records, etc.) that are protected by FERPA, HIPAA, or other confidentiality policies requires permission from the holders of those records. Similarly, for research conducted in institutions other than ISU (e.g., schools, other colleges or universities, medical facilities, companies, etc.), investigators must obtain permission from the institution(s) as required by their policies. An IRB determination of exemption in no way implies or guarantees that permission from these other entities will be granted. • Your research study may be subject to post-approval monitoring by Iowa State University’s Office for Responsible Research. In some cases, it may also be subject to formal audit or inspection by federal agencies and study sponsors. • Upon completion of the project, transfer of IRB oversight to another IRB, or departure of the PI and/or Supervising Investigator, please initiate a Project Closure in IRBManager to officially close the project. For information on instances when a study may be closed, please refer to the IRB Study Closure Policy.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or concerns at 515-294-4566 or [email protected].

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APPENDIX F. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL Opening:

1. Please state your name and your current (job/hobbies or career goal) for the tape. 2. How long were you at Ilé-Ifẹ̀? a. What brought you to Ilé-Ifẹ̀? Why did you decide to go to Ilé-Ifẹ̀? 3. As a RITES of Passage Student, what are your roles and responsibilities? 4. What does a typical day look like for you as a student at Ilé-Ifẹ̀? a. Probes: Student tasks, responsibilities, student interactions, adult interactions, etc.

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

Introductory:

5. How would you describe Ilé-Ifẹ̀? 6. For you, what does it mean to be an African-centered program? Please define this for me. 7. How would you describe RITES (Rites of Passage)? a. What are some of the attributes of RITES? (e.g., school culture and climate; adult- student interactions; student-student interactions; instructional styles; mission/vision, etc.) b. How would you describe Ilé-Ifẹ̀ to a parent of a prospective student?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

Transition:

8. How has Ilé-Ifẹ̀ influenced your understanding regarding Africa? 9. What have you learned about African culture, spirituality, certain concepts like Ubuntu, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Kujumla, and Sanfoka? 10. What have you learned about African collective practices? 11. How were they used in Rites 12. How were African-centered perspectives used in your daily life? 13. Please walk me through a typical day in RITES. a. Probes: schedule, student schedules, assemblies, other activities (IYE)?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

Establish the context of the participant’s experience

14. What has it been like to be a student in the Rites of Passage program?

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a. Prompts: What did you like most about RITES? What do you like least about Ilé- Ifẹ̀/RITES? 15. Is this the only African-centered program you have attended? If so, how do you think this program differs from other programs? If not, how is it similar or different to other programs you have attended? 16. How is this approach implemented /evidenced in the program practices? In the physical environment of the program? In interactions between teachers, students, and staff?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

17. How did you see instructors implement an African-centered approach in the classroom? 18. How is this approach implemented/evidenced in the rules and policies? In the physical environment? In the interactions between teachers, students, and staff? 19. What are other programs offered to students? Did you participate in other programs outside of Rites of Passage? 20. What, if anything, makes the African-centered approach unique for Black/Latinx students?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

21. Do you see ways in which the African-centered approach positively influences students/you? a. Prompt: how students see themselves; their motivation to learn? Please explain. 22. African-centered schools/programs have received widespread support, but some people, including African Americans, don’t agree with this approach. a. What, if any, are the limitations to this approach to teaching and learning? b. How would you describe critiques you have heard of African-centered education? 23. How would you respond to current critiques of African-centered schooling? 24. Is it important to have Programs like this? Please explain. a. (Prompts: What difference does this program make? Why does this type of program matter?)

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

Details associated with this experience

25. If you were to describe to a friend what to expect if they were going to do a one-day visit at ILÉ-IFẸ̀ , what would you say? 26. How would you describe your classrooms/places of learning? What do they look/smell/sound like? What would you change?

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27. In your experience, how do students talk/greet/interact with each other and work together? 28. In your experience, how do teachers and students talk to each other and work together? 29. How would you describe student-student relationships? a. In what ways, if any, do you see these relationships inform how they behave or act? Please explain. 30. How would you describe the student-teacher relationship and student-staff relationships? a. In what ways, if any, do you see these relationships inform how they behave or act? Please explain.

31. What are some of the rules of this program? What do you think about these rules? 32. Students at this program come from different areas of the city; how do students make friends? 33. How would you describe your relationships with your instructors and other adults in this program? 34. In what ways do students connect with one another in the program? Are you still connected with any alumni? 35. Students come from different areas of the city; does that make it difficult for them to make friendships? Please explain. 36. How would you compare African American students’ experience at this African-centered school with those at traditional schools? Please explain. a. What, if anything, makes the African-centered approach unique for African American students?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

Reflect on the meaning of their experience

37. How would you describe your personal relationships with your peers or friends/brothers and sisters in the program? 38. Do you have a favorite instructor? a. If so, describe him or her to me. b. What is it about him or her that makes him or her your favorite? 39. Are there adults in the building you can go to if you have a problem or an issue? a. How was these (issues resolved)? 40. What do you see as the benefit of attending this program? a. What has been most helpful to you personally in being at this program? 41. Why would a child choose to go to an African-centered program like this one? 42. How has the mission, vision, and values of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ influenced your life (Read mission vision and values if needed)?

[Would you explain further? Can you give me an example? Would you say more? Tell me more. Say more. Is there anything else? Please describe what you mean. I don’t understand.]

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Ending Questions:

43. If you could only use three words to describe this Ilé-Ifẹ̀, what would they be? Why? 44. We have talked today about your experiences in Rites of Passage and what it has been like for you to be a part of an African-centered program. More importantly, how do you think this experience has influenced your life/career goals/ hobbies today. 45. Are you currently involved with any African-centered clubs or activities? 46. If you could only use three words to describe Ilé-Ifẹ̀, what would they be? Why?

Have we missed anything? Is there anything else that you’d like to tell me? Do you have any questions for me?

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APPENDIX G. SCREENING INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Hi, [INSERT NAME]. I am Alade McKen. Thank you for your interest in my research study. The reason for my call is to follow up on your interest. There are four things for us to address during this conversation, and it will take about ten minutes. Do you have about ten minutes right now? • If yes, continue below. • If no, schedule another time.

Okay, great. As I mentioned, there are four things for us to address in this conversation. First, I am going to share some information with you about the study. Second, I would like to answer any questions you have about the study. Third, I would like to ask for your verbal consent to answer some screening questions. Finally, if you provide verbal consent, I would like to ask you the screening questions. Do you have any questions about what we are going to address in this conversation? • If yes, answer questions. • If no, continue below.

Okay, great. First, I’d like to share some information with you about my study.

This research study is for the dissertation project I am conducting as a part of my degree requirements. I am a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in the Social Cultural Studies program in the School of Education at Iowa State University.

The purpose of this research study is to examine the experiences of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Alumni from the RITES of Passage Program and how do they make meaning of their experiences in their lives today.

The results of this research study will be published in my dissertation. They may also be presented at research and professional conferences and/or published in academic journals and books.

That concludes the information I wanted to share with you about the study. Do you have any questions about the study? • If yes, answer questions. • If no, continue below.

Okay, now I would like to move on to the screening questions I mentioned earlier. The purpose of these questions is to determine whether you are eligible to participate in the study.

In a moment, I will ask for your verbal consent to answer the screening questions. If you do not consent to answer the screening questions, you will not be eligible to participate in my study.

If you give your consent, I will ask you a series of questions and write down your responses on a form. Please note that this does not mean you have consented to participate in my study if you answer the screening questions. I will use responses to the screening questions to decide who to invite to participate in the study. If I invite you to participate in the study and decide to participate, I may analyze your responses to the screening questions and the other data I collect. If you decide not to participate in the study, I will discard your responses to the screening questions, and they will not be used as part of the study.

Do you have any questions? • If yes, answer questions.

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• If no, continue below.

May I have your verbal consent to ask you the screening questions? • If yes, continue below. • If no, thank the prospective participant for their time and interest, and end the call.

Thank you very much. I am now going to ask you the screening questions.

First, are you a graduate of Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s RITES of passage program? • If yes, continue with the screening questions form on the next page. • If no, say, “Unfortunately, this means you are not eligible to participate in the study. Only individuals who identify as Black are eligible to participate. This means I do not need to ask you the additional screening questions. However, do you have any questions for me?” o If yes, answer questions. o If no, thank the prospective participant for their time and interest, and end the call.

Second, are you at least 18 years of age? • If yes, continue with the screening questions form on the next page. • If no, say, “Unfortunately, this means you are not eligible to participate in the study. Only individuals who are at least 18 years of age are eligible to participate. This means I do not need to ask you the additional screening questions. However, do you have any questions for me?” o If yes, answer questions. o If no, thank the prospective participant for their time and interest, and end the call.

Thank you for answering the screening questions. That is all of the information that I need from you today. I am conducting screening interviews with other individuals. Once I complete that process, I will review the responses and determine who I would like to invite to participate in the study. I will notify you of my decision by [date]. Do you have any questions for me? • If yes, answer questions. • If no, thank the prospective participant for their time and interest, and end the call.

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APPENDIX H. SCREENING INTERVIEW FOLLOW-UP EMAIL (ACCEPTANCE)

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ RITES of Passage Experience Screening Interview Follow-Up Email (Acceptance)

RE: Participating in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ RITES of Passage Experience Study

Dear [POTENTIAL PARTICIPANT NAME],

Thank you for speaking with me about your interest in my research study that explores RITES of Passage Alumni experiences. I am very pleased to invite you to participate in the study. If you are still interested, please reply to this message, and we can then schedule your interview.

Participating would primarily involve completing one demographic form and one interview with me during the spring 2020 semester. Please see the attached consent form for details of the time commitment and your compensation for participating. We would discuss the consent form in more detail when we speak, and you would be asked to sign this form before the interview.

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you again for your interest in the study.

Alade

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APPENDIX I. SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE VIA GOOGLE FORMS

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Rites of Passage

COMPLETE THIS FIRST:

I obtained verbal consent to ask the screening questions.

Interviewer’s initials: Today’s date:

SCREENING QUESTIONS:

1. What is your full name?

2. When did you graduate RITES (of Passage)?

3. How many years have you been with Ilé-Ifẹ̀?

4. Where you in IYE (Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Youth Ensemble)?

5. What city and country is your family from?

6. Where do you consider yourself from?

7. Did you live there while you were in Ilé-Ifẹ̀?

a. If Brooklyn, continue to question 8.

b. If not Brooklyn, what (borough) city did you live while you were in Ilé-Ifẹ̀?

8. Please describe your gender:

9. Please describe your social class:

END OF SCREENING QUESTIONS

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APPENDIX J. DEMOGRAPHIC FORM (VIA GOOGLE FORMS)

Contact Information

Full Name:

Cell Phone: Email address:

Preferred Interview Method: Zoom In-Person Google Hangout Skype

Telephone

Email, Username, or Contact for Interview:

2. Pseudonym (preferred alternative name):

Educational Background

Name of undergraduate institution:

Degree you are currently pursuing:

Previous institution(s) attended:

Previous degree(s):

Have you taken a course in any of the following departments? African Studies

Africana Studies Black History Caribbean Studies Ethnic Studies

Demographic Information How would you describe yourself concerning the following identities?

Racial identity:

Ethnic identity:

National identity:

Gender identity:

Sexual orientation: _

Religious/ Spiritual identity:

Dis/ability identity:

Age:

Other identities that are important to you:

Current Career or Occupation:

Marital status Single Married Partnered Divorced Other:

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Do you have children? No Yes

Family Dynamics

Were you raised by your parents? Yes No, If not, who raised you?

Marital status of parents/guardians: Single Married Partnered Divorced

Do you have any siblings? No Yes If so, how many?

Have any of them participated in RITES? No Yes If so, how many?

Where do your parents/guardians live? (City/State)

Citizenship and/or generational status

Please indicate your citizenship and/or generational status a. My grandparents, parents and I were born in the United States b. My parents and I were born in the United States, but one or more of my grandparents were not c. I was born in the United States, but my parents were not d. One parent and I were born in the United States, and one parent was not e. I am a foreign-born, naturalized citizen f. I am a permanent resident

Background of Father

What country is your father from?

What is/was your father’s occupation?

Background of Mother

What country is your mother from?

What is/was your mother’s occupation? ______