Individuals who develop racial literacy are able to engage in the necessary personal reflection about their racial beliefs and practices, and teach their students to do the same. Racial literacy in schools includes the ability to read, write about, discuss and interrupt situations and events that are motivated and upheld by racial inequity and bias. Sustaining racial literacy across the life span is possible by engaging in an "Archeology of the Self" - an action-oriented process requiring love, humility, reflection, an understanding of history, and a commitment to working against racial injustice. In this talk, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz will discuss her theoretical and practical model for implementing racial literacy within teaching and teacher education. Dr. Sealey-Ruiz will also engage educators in examining their own teaching practice toward the advancement of racial equity.

Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz (Ph.D., New York University) is an Associate Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Yolanda is former Research Associate with the NYU Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, and has worked for Business Week, The New York Times, and New York University in Marketing and Promotion positions. Her research interests include racial literacy development in urban teacher education (with a specific focus on the education of Black and Latino males), literacy practices of Black girls, and Black female college reentry students.

Yolanda’s work has appeared in several top-tier academic journals. Yolanda is co-editor of three books including (with Chance W. Lewis and Ivory A. Toldson) Teacher Education and Black Communities: Implications for Access, Equity, and Achievement (IAP). At Teachers College, she is founder and faculty sponsor of the Racial Literacy Roundtables Series where for ten years, national scholars, doctoral, and pre-service and in-service Master’s students, and young people facilitate informal conversations around race and other issues involving diversity and teacher education for the Teachers College / Columbia University community. She is also the co-founder of the Teachers College Civic Participation Project which concerns itself with the educational well-being of young people involved with the juvenile justice and foster care systems in New York.

Yolanda and two of her students appeared in Spike Lee’s “2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright” (2016), a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement and the campus protests at Mizzou.

Dr. Sealey-Ruiz will hold a separate Zoom meeting with students from 1:00pm to 1:40pm that will be a discussion about research and her career in the academy.