As we prepare to observe Black History Month in February, new research is shedding light on a largely overlooked chapter in American education history that connects the displacement of Black educators after desegregation with schooling on the Navajo Nation.

Nathan Tanner, Ph.D., assistant professor of Educational Leadership in the College of Education and Human Development, is a co-author of the article “A Different Brown Story: Black Teacher Recruitment to Navajo Reservation BIA Schools During the Desegregation Era,” published in Educational Researcher, one of the American Educational Research Association’s premier peer-reviewed journals.

The article examines the aftermath of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and traces what happened to thousands of Black teachers who lost their positions during the transition to desegregated schooling across the South. While the ruling declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, many districts responded by dismissing or demoting Black educators. The study highlights how federal Bureau of Indian Affairs schools on the Navajo Nation became an unexpected site of employment for many of these displaced teachers.

Through targeted recruitment efforts, hundreds of Black educators were hired to teach in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools beginning in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, African American teachers made up a substantial portion of the teaching workforce in Navajo Nation schools and often remained in their positions longer than their white counterparts.

The research centers on the lived experiences of Navajo students, including the story of Betty Yazzie, who began kindergarten at Chinle Boarding School in 1963. Raised in a traditional Navajo household and speaking only Diné bizaad, Yazzie entered a school system designed to suppress Indigenous language and culture. Her first teacher, a Black woman, played an important role in her early education. Rather than enforcing assimilationist practices, the teacher incorporated Navajo language and cultural traditions into classroom learning.

“While this education history is certainly well known to the descendants of the Black teachers and their Diné/Navajo students alike, for many audiences, this may be the first time they have heard anything about it,” Tanner explained.  “As we state in our published article, there are reasons for this, connected first and foremost to widespread resistance to and disdain for the racial desegregation of schools and the teaching workforce.

“Like any history, ours highlights the complexities that contributed to Black teachers working with and the impact they had on Diné students. That said, our work contributes to renewed conversation about and highlights the sustained significance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision and its impact on the entire American educational system.”

The publication was coauthored by Oliver George Tapaha, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Khalil Anthony Johnson Jr., Ph.D., Wesleyan University, Middletown; and Terah Venzant Chambers, Ph.D., Michigan State University.

“This was an exciting research project to work on, and it was an honor to collaborate with such a stellar group of scholars to produce this publication,” Tanner said. “I’m excited for new audiences to become acquainted with this educational history, particularly now during a contemporary sociopolitical moment when diversity, equity and inclusion are a matter of substantial public debate and at the center of educational policy decision-making. For me, this history is a reminder that education policy at all levels has a substantive impact on real people's lives, and that how teachers work with students matters.”

Black History Month reminds us to reflect on the contributions of Black Americans. Tanner and his coauthors argue that understanding this shared history deepens conversations about equity, belonging and the long-term impact of education policy.