In this episode, I'm honored to welcome Dr. Crystal Menzies to the podcast to talk about her personal journey in education, the founding of The EmanicpatED, her collaborative research work with the Maroon communities, and how teachers can incorporate Black historical counternarratives into the curriculum. To learn more about Crystal's work, you can visit the EmancipatED website at emancipatededucation.com or you can follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter (@emancipate_ed).
BIO: Crystal Menzies, PhD (she/her) is an educator of Black and Brown youth, a postdoctoral researcher studying cultural community wealth, and the founder of EmancipatED. A former culturally responsive teacher in urban schools, Crystal aspired to teach her students about ways of being and thinking that did not center whiteness. However, she quickly realized that it would take more than being a “good teacher” to dismantle the systems of oppression that led to the systemic violence she and her students experienced.
In an effort to tell a more expansive story of the Black experience across the Diaspora that didn’t perpetuate trauma narratives, Crystal traveled the globe to learn about the rich history of resistance and liberation movements that are often made invisible in our collective history books. Drawing on her Guyanese and African American roots, the legacy of Black educators, educational psychology, liberatory pedagogy, and African-Diasporan history, Crystal founded EmancipatED to uncover our hidden Black history.
Through research-based educational products that center Black communities, Crystal hopes to create environments in which Black people, as a collective, can find joy, empowerment, and community through multi-generational learning. Her flagship product is an exploration kit that shares the stories of Maroon communities, which offers Black and Brown families a model for how to navigate as liberated beings within oppressive systems. She lives in the Bay Area (or the Yay area as she affectionately refers to it) and enjoys reading, Marvel movies, and daydreaming of Black Futures.
