ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I center the classroom component of the BlackGirlLand Project, a larger project that explores the placemaking practices of Black girls and women. Participants in the project include Black women from the South Carolina Sea Islands and students enrolled in an African American & African Studies course. By placing our experiences, knowledge, and memories into current and historical landscapes, I argue that Black girls and women’s stories counter colonial projects of mapping that erase Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. For this chapter, I revisit course materials and assignments to discuss how students used the space to cultivate Black Girls’ Literacy practices of placemaking, mapping, and remembering. By emphasizing how Black girls and women’s knowledge and memory inform geopolitical landscapes, I argue that these literacy practices engage the work of Indigenous land educators and Black and decolonial feminists. The chapter concludes with reflections for English educators to consider as we think about Black women and girls’ literacies of becoming.
