A Critical Pedagogy with College and High School Students in St. Louis Post-Mike Brown

Abstract

This article presents a critical pedagogy for a racially oppressed working-class community, situated in this current moment of capitalist crises. In the aftermath of the police killing of Mike Brown and militarized police occupation in St. Louis, MO, students from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) employed a Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) module with African American high school students, during Alternative Spring Break 2015. The political education tools were grounded in Historical Materialism and Critical Race Theory. This was rooted in a movement-based praxis by and for the most affected persons (people of color, women, indigenous, immigrants, and queer populations). The PIC module informed this pedagogical process of raising consciousness, creating a vision, and strategizing toward long-term social change. Here, we discuss how this module enabled students to begin to grapple with the root of systemic racism, by connecting theory to their lived experiences. We understand this process as contributing to scholar activism, rooted in transformative public sociology. The modifications are discussed for implementation within future curriculums.