the majestic place: the freedom possible in black women’s leadership

In The Majestic Place: The Freedom Possible in Black Women’s Leadership, editors Wendi S. Williams, Whitneé L. Garrett-Walker, and Nia D. Spooner curate the leadership narratives of Black women leaders from a range of contexts, including education, health, and non-profit industries, in which they serve some of the most vulnerable and chronically disserved. Focused on the stages of women’s intra-personal and spiritual development, this book aims to create an expansive vision of Black women’s leadership grounded in lived experience. Contributors to this book are Black women scholar-practitioners who lead in higher stakes context of serving and cultivating people and change. Each was invited to express their leadership experience(s) in essay, poetry, and/or prose form to offer a lens into the interiority of Black women’s leadership praxis that is not always welcomed or heard.

About the Editors

Wendi S. Williams Psychologist, advocate, and educator, Dr. Wendi Williams applies her work at the intersection of education and psychology to her scholarship and leadership praxis. Williams completed undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis where she majored in psychology and minored in African and African American Studies. She completed graduate study at Pepperdine University (MA in Psychology) and Georgia State University, where she earned a doctorate in counseling psychology, with an emphasis in multicultural psychology and family systems. Williams began her career as assistant professor in counselor education at Long Island University - Brooklyn and has served as an academic administrator for progressive, justice-focused higher education institutions, like Bank Street College of Education and Mills College, School of Education. She joined Fielding Graduate University provost and senior vice president in October 2022. Dr. Williams is an accomplished scholar in the areas of Black women and girls leadership and development, most notably with her recently published book Black Women at Work: On Refusal and Recovery. Learn more about Dr. Williams work at drwendiwilliams.com.

Dr. Whitneé L. Garrett-Walker (she/her) is the Assistant Dean of Credentialing and Partnerships in the School of Education, University of San Francisco. Whitneé is a Black, Indigenous (Natchitoches Tribe of Louisiana, enrolled member) and Queer wife, mother and scholar born and raised on Raymaytush Ohlone Land. She earned her B.A. in History from UC Berkeley, Master’s degree in Teaching from Saint Mary’s College of California and her Ed.D from University of San Francisco. Whitneé has extensive experience loving, living and working in the field of public education and has spent over a decade as a middle and high school teacher, instructional coach and school administrator in urban public schools in Oakland Unified and San Francisco Unified School Districts, respectively. Dr. Garrett-Walker is a triple-credentialed California educator who believes deeply in the power of critical hope, healing, and educational justice in the field of education. As a scholar practitioner, Whitneé uses qualitative research as the foundation of feeding her desire to explore and make known the experiences of the promise, challenge and potential of Black and Indigenous women in educational leadership.

Nia Spooner is a former educator and current doctoral student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Nia earned her B.A. in Education from Smith College and her M.Ed from the University of Toronto. She is passionate about education and has extensive experience teaching in cross-cultural contexts. After completing her teaching practicum in Massachusetts, Nia was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship which brought her teaching career to Taiwan for one year, and she further developed her teaching and language skills as a middle and high school educator in Shanghai. All of her education, teaching, and lived experiences as a Black and Chinese woman have informed her scholarly interests. Nia’s research focuses on culturally responsive and equity-oriented leadership in education.

Contributors

Yetunde Ade-Serrano, Norka Blackman-Richards, Krista L. Cortes, Whitneé L. Garrett-Walker, Roxane L. Gervais, Roseilyn Guzman, Renée Heywood, Rhema Heywood, Rachelle Rogers-Ard, Kaiayo Zitkála Shatteen, Nia Spooner, DeLisha Tapscott, Wendi S. Williams