White activism and social justice in educational leadership: the work of Jean-Charles Houzeau

Through a close reading of Jean-Charles Houzeau’s ‘My Passage at the New Orleans Tribune: A Memoir of the Civil War Era’, I began the process of attempting to adjudicate between an abolitionist––a type of individual who has been made possible in our collective imagery through our historical education––and an active anti-racist educational leader––someone who is more of a recent twentieth–twenty-first century figure in our collective consciousness. Next, I question the absence of active white anti-racists throughout history curriculum and our dependence on the almost docile and paternalistic character of abolitionists as the singular historical example of white allies or radicals. Finally, I consider the implications for not providing a spectrum of white resistance in curriculum for educational leaders, students and the work of social justice in schools wholly.