Established in 2017

In January 2017, Philly educators expanded from a day of education to a week of action. Tamara decided to focus the week on the thirteen guiding principles developed by original organizers of the Black Lives Matter Global Network.  The first week of action took place, and educators in Rochester, NY, held a Black Lives Matter at school day. Along with others, they showed that Black Lives Matter at their school. Then in the summer of 2017, Philly teachers presented about the week at the Free Minds Free People conference.

After that conference, educators began grassroots efforts via conference calls, gathered resources, and formed a Black Lives Matter at School steering committee. During the 2017-2018 school year, the week moved to the first full week in February and went national. Thousands of educators wore BLM shirts and taught lessons on structural racism, Black history, intersectional Black identities, and anti-racist movements. In the next three years, the movement spread across the US to more than fifty schools, then globally, affirming the lives of Black students, teachers, and families. ​

Our Foundation & Leadership

Our collective is guided by core principles shared by the Combahee River Collective a Black Feminist framework. Political views that have brought us together in doing this work: deep revolutionary transformational politics, opposition to neoliberalism, corporate reforms in education, defend and transform unions, Black queer feminist anti-capitalist politics, abolitionist politics and approach to restorative and transformative justice. 

We are a Black led organization, including original steering committee members and new individuals who are dedicated to Black students' success and safety. Our steering committee is a multi-ethnoracial group of educators, parents, organizers, and community folk located in cities across the country. We share a commitment to creating a more just world so that all people may be able to access their full humanity. We invite school staff, unions, parents, students, and community organizations to join us.
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National Black Lives Matter at School is an organization struggling for liberation and racial justice in education for Black youth, educators, and all youth of color.  We work to address racial justice in education by promoting restorative justice, advocating for mental health support, increasing Black teaching staff, ending police presence in schools, and mandating Black history and ethnic studies.