Education beyond borders: rethinking black women’s global educational narratives, 1923-1951

Education Beyond Borders shows that even before Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) attempted to open new opportunities for Black Americans by legally desegregating schools, Black American women realized new educational possibilities for themselves by traveling abroad. More specifically, this study illuminates how Black female global educationalists fulfilled their international educational goals in the context of dynamic national and global events between 1923 and 1954. I define Black female global educationalists as Black female travelers who fulfilled research, teaching, or study objectives abroad. The women included in this study are artists Gwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981) and Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998), scholar Merze Tate (1905-1996), and anthropologist Eslanda Robeson (1895-1965).

This historical study argues that Black female global educationalists’ travels to European, African, and Southeast Asian countries as teachers, students, or researchers required more than their perseverance. Their fulfillment of meaningful educational trips required access to adequate and accessible compensation for travel, boarding, and living expenses, contact with social and academic networks to support educational goals in new environments, and the ability to gain wide-ranging opportunities abroad to learn about new places, cultures, and people. Ultimately, this work is significant to contemporary study abroad initiatives. International educational exchange initiatives, embedded in academic institutions, philanthropic organizations, or government agencies, continue to draw mainly white participants. Black participants remain underrepresented. This study reminds these organizations of the importance of considering holistic approaches of support to advance dynamic and empowering global learning experiences for Black women.