Holla! : Black Girlhood Pedagogies in an Abolitionist Appalachian Classroom

Black Girlhood Studies spotlights the oft-neglected intersection of gender, race, age, and place within feminist scholarship. These teaching notes reflect on the geopolitical landscape that informed the creation of our course on Black Girlhood Studies as Black Feminist Theory. We share how we and student scholars co-created our very own “holler,” a Black feminist abolitionist Appalachian classroom and pedagogical space, rooted in safety and care and the centering of Black girlhood knowledge and experiences. We share how young Black women college students were able to “holla back” and defy normative conceptions of gender, intersectionality, and activism in Appalachia. We offer interventions to free feminist pedagogical practice from its uncritical adultification of Black girlhood in the region's colleges and universities. We argue that embracing Black Girlhood Studies pedagogy bolsters students’ critical consciousness and resists the very sociopolitical contexts that wrongly dismiss Black girls as having little to contribute to feminist theories and praxes.