ABSTRACT
This chapter is about learning, growing, and being willing to change. It is about being comfortable with discomfort, finding happiness in transgression, and the willingness to be there and go there in order to transform and progress. The terms African descent and Black will be used interchangeably in the chapter to include Black women who are African American as well as those who are immigrants or children of immigrants from countries such as Haiti, Jamaica, all Caribbean islands, Cuba, and the continent of Africa. Compounding this issue, there are documented shortages of women of color in education as a profession, educational leadership and tenure-line academic appointments in particular; exasperated by their need for and benefit from mentoring and direct access to educational information. The Black feminist perspective emerged out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s. Black feminism is characterized by an understanding of the ways in which sex, class oppression, and racism interconnect.
