Fugitive Mentorship and Cultivating Expansive Futures:

A Collaborative Autoethnography by Black Student Union Advisors

Abstract

In response to the growing bans on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) across multiple states (Shwartz, 2021), the need to listen to Black Education Spaces (BES) advocates has never been more crucial to the thriving future of Black Education (Love, 2019, 2023). This article aims to amplify the important, yet often overlooked, voices of High School Black Student Union (BSU) advisors and their experiences with mentorship. Utilizing collaborative autoethnography methodology, we, the authors as research participants, collectively explored the following research question: “How do we steward Black Educational Futures that do not perpetuate school systems’ anti-Blackness rhetoric?” Through our four vantage points on advising BSUs within the same district in the American Southwest, we offer three findings that nuance Givens’ (2021) historical framework of Fugitive Pedagogy and Warren and Coles’ (2020) conceptualization of BES. By showcasing how our layered identities as BSU advisors impacted us and our educational landscape, we wrote this article to contribute to the literature on how educators, broadly defined, can challenge inequities while fostering inclusive educational environments (Crenshaw, 1991; Yosso, 2005).