We’re Just Ordinary People: Messianic Master Narratives and Black Youths’ Civic Agency

Abstract

Critical race scholars have argued that curricular portrayals of the Civil Rights Movement are undermined by master narratives that legitimate the racial status quo. Although many scholars have critiqued Movement master narratives in social studies and society, few studies have examined Black students’ interpretations of such representations and the effects of these representations on their sense of civic agency. In this article, I present ethnographic data that illustrate the function of a specific type of master narrative, messianic master narratives, in 9 Black urban youths’ understandings of historical and contemporary civil rights leadership. Messianic master narratives position an individual as the messiah, savior, or deliverer of an oppressed group. Data provide evidence that messianic master narratives constrain Black youths’ civic agency, specifically by associating civil rights leadership with immense risk, uncritically invoking Judeo–Christian values, and undermining participants’ understandings of historical agency and historical collective action. I conclude by explicating curricular risks associated with messianic master narratives and offering recommendations toward disrupting these narratives in social studies classrooms.

Keywords:

• Civil Rights Movement
• race and racism
• social studies education
• urban education

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Anthony Brown, Dorinda Carter Andrews, Amanda Godley, and H. Richard Milner for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

1. ¹Qahir identified Huey Newton and Van Jones as civic figures of interest in a separate interview. Huey Newton (1942–1989) was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Van Jones (b. 1968) is an attorney, environmental and civil rights activist, and former White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley N. Woodson

ASHLEY N. WOODSON is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education, Department of Instruction and Learning, and a Faculty Fellow, Center for Urban Education, at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. She can be contacted at Email: [email protected].