What began as a Black woman professor assessing local needs has become an interdisciplinary collective of Black women scholars committed to disrupting institutionalized ideas about how research can be done. The seed for Black Madison Voices (BMV) was planted when a Black alumni of Madison public schools critiqued the disturbing absence of Black perspectives in the city’s efforts to address educational inequities. This seed found fertile soil. This professor studies all-Black educational spaces and how they can serve as fugitive spaces offering shelter from anti-Black violence while inviting non-hegemonic Blackness and Black intellect and joy. This research led the professor to start a Black women’s writing group; following the dialogue with the aforementioned alumni, it was this group she contacted.
