Conference

Black Lives Matter: Fashion, Liberation, and the Fight for Freedom—Finding Space in the Curriculum for Black Voices Through Counter-Storytelling

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Abstract

The purpose of this session is to outline the pedagogical approach of a course in the Apparel, Merchandising, and Design (AMD) program titled Black Lives Matter: Fashion, Liberation, and the Fight for Freedom. We will provide an overview of the course and the student learning outcomes, which are centered around the tenets of Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). The course started as a grass-roots effort by a Black male student in AMD. The presentation will focus on his experience as one of the only Black males in the program and how his initiatives, despite engaging in continuous microagressions on campus and in the classroom, helped him thrive and serve as a leader alongside a faculty member in curriculum visioning to center Black voices. The course culminates in a public exhibition of student research at the Ames Public Library. To contextualize the course, one of the students enrolled in the Fall 2019 semester will share research from her project titled Press and Prim: Black Women's Protective Hairstyles.