Stealin’ the Meetin’: Black Education History and the Black Panthers’ Oakland Community School

Stealin’ the Meetin’: Black Education History and the Black Panthers’ Oakland Community School traces the legacy of Black education in the Black Panther Party's Oakland Community School (OCS) as one of many Black independent education projects for social justice in the United States. The book argues that the Oakland Community School extended the already growing educational programs of the BPP and the broader San Francisco Bay Area to establish transformative teaching approaches with elementary-aged children long before many of these practices became popular. 40 years before teachers mobilized children and young adults around Black lives, Panther children were reading the word and the world as co-creators of knowledge with local activists, parents, and community members. They played games with Huey P. Newton, performed a play for Rosa Parks, and sat at the feet of James Baldwin all within the same space in which they ate three square meals, practiced Korean calculation techniques, conducted “Justice Court,” and practiced yoga. The children’s seamless connection between home, school, and community prefigured the blurred educational landscape of the present.

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Robert Robinson is an Assistant Professor in the SEEK Program at John Jay College & Induction Mentor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to higher ed, he was a K-12 educator & mentor for 11 years. His broad research & teaching include Black education history, history of education, curriculum studies, mentorship & advising, & the Black Freedom Movement.