Source: Creative Services / iOne Digital
Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and social justice. Dr. Morris is the author of “Sing A Rhythm, Dance A Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls” (The New Press, 2019), which explores a pedagogy to counter the criminalization of Black and Brown girls in schools. She is also the author of “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools” (The New Press, 2016), “Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century” (The New Press, 2014), “Too Beautiful for Words” (MWM Books, 2012).
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Three adjectives to describe yourself: Focused.
MN: Who has been the most influential person in your life that inspired you to begin the path that you’re on today?
MN: As a Black woman/Black femme, we are rarely allowed to take up space. What are the ways in which you find yourself purposefully doing just that?
MM: I aim to be my authentic self wherever I go. My space is claimed when I walk in because I know that I deserve to be there—and I am in that place, at that moment, for a reason.
MN: How have you had to work to deconstruct or break down any anti-Blackness that we’ve been taught to harbor?
MN: What advice would you give to your 13-year-old self?
MM: Stand in your truth.
MN: What is your biggest dream for Black women/Black femmes everywhere?
MM: Freedom.
