Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls (Paperback or Softback)

Be a part of the radical transformation to honor and respect Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls!

This book is a collective call to action for educational justice and fairness for all Black Girls – Beautiful, Brilliant. This book engages willing and knowledgeable educators to disrupt and transform their learning spaces by presenting:

• Detailed chapters rooted in scholarship, lived experiences, and practice
• Activities, recommendations, shorter personal narratives, and poetry honoring Black Girls
• Resources centering Black female protagonists
• Companion videos illustrating first-hand experiences of Black Girls and women
•  Tools in authentically connecting with Black Girls so they can do more than survive – they can thrive.

Dr. Delano-Oriaran continues to dedicate her life to advocating for racial and all forms (social, economic, political, educational) of justice for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Her mission is to authentically engage with schools, communities, organizations, and businesses to achieve critical transformation with the goal of eliminating manifestations of racism--individual, institutional, systemic, and structural--and intersecting forms of oppression. As a teacher educator, she challenges educators to adopt inclusive, diverse, equitable, and liberatory approaches that are culturally responsible, relevant, and sustaining.

Dr. Delano-Oriaran is an associate professor in the Teacher-Education Department at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, where she serves as director of the Global Student-Teaching Program and Bridge Pre-College Program. She earned her undergraduate and master's degrees in public administration at the historically Black Savannah State University in Georgia, and her PhD in comparative and international education with a minor in women and development from Pennsylvania State University.

An avid researcher and writer, Dr. Delano-Oriaran has published papers in journals and books and is the lead editor of two volumes on service-learning. She has founded or cofounded several award-winning programs, including African Heritage, Inc., the Umoja Program for transracial families, and the African Heritage Emerging Student Leaders Institute. She is the recipient of numerous awards for diversity issues and community change, including the 2020 Ethics in Action Award, the Sister Joel Read Civic Engagement Practitioners Award, the City of Appleton's Toward Community Unity in Diversity Award, the Wisconsin State Human Relations Association's Outstanding Human Relations Educator, and St. Norbert College's Scholarship, and Bishop Morneau Community Service Awards.


Marguerite W. Penick received her PhD from the University of Iowa in curriculum and instruction. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as a high school teacher in an urban school in Kansas City, Kansas. Dr. Penick is a professor of leadership, literacy and social foundations in the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Her work centers on issues of power, privilege, and oppression in relationship to issues of curriculum, with a special emphasis on the incorporation of quality literature in K-12 classrooms. Dr. Penick currently serves as a lead editor for the online journal, Understanding and Dismantling Privilege. She appears in the movie "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible" by the World Trust Organization. Her work includes a joint article on creating safe spaces for discussing white privilege with preservice teachers, and she is a coeditor of Everyday White People Confronting Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (Stylus Publishing, 2015), The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys (Corwin, 2017), and The Diversity Consultant Cookbook (Stylus Publishing, 2019).

Shemariah J. Arki identifies as an educator, an activist, and an organizer. Currently serving as a professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies and as the interim director of the Center for Pan-African Culture, both at Kent State University, she is an intersectional feminist scholar with expert knowledge and skills to develop, implement, facilitate, and evaluate curricula that promote institutional equity, communication, and access for traditionally marginalized students and families. Dr. Arki received a graduate certificate from the Penn Equity Institute for Doctoral Students from the Center for The Study of Race & Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She has also been a certified federal equal employment opportunity investigator since 2017.

Serving as the founder and program director of the Ellipsis Institute for Womxn of Color in the Academy and as an auto/ethnographic researcher and creative nonfiction writer, her work centers cultural epistemologies and the construction of a #BlackCommaFeminist pedagogy.

She has authored several academic and creative publications that center the lived experiences of womxn of color in education. As a public intellectual, she consistently ensures that education should be free and compulsory to all through her participation, organizing, and mobilizing of diverse constituents.

A proud Clevelander and mom of Solomon Tafari and Malcom Saadiq, Shemariah enjoys traveling, yoga, and making memories with family and friends.



As the Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, Ali Michael, Ph.D. works with schools and organizations across the country to help make research on race, Whiteness, and education more accessible and relevant to educators. Ali is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education, winner of the 2017 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. As a member of a multiracial editorial team, she has co-edited The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys, Teaching Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls, and Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories. With her colleague Toni Graves Williamson, Ali adapted Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility for a Young Adult audience. Ali sits on the editorial board of the journal Whiteness and Education. Her article, What do White Children Need to Know About Race?, co-authored with Dr. Eleonora Bartoli in Independent Schools Magazine, won the Association and Media Publishing Gold Award for Best Feature Article in 2014. When she is not writing, speaking, or training, Ali is striving to be an anti-racist co-parent to two amazing kids. Her writing and speeches are available at alimichael.org.

Orinthia Swindell has centered the voices and experiences of youth and families as the focal point of her work as an educator for the past 28 years. She credits her mother for instilling in her the importance and value of education and of being connected to their community. As the youngest of six children growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Ms. Swindell developed a passion for learning and teaching others about social justice, equity, and inclusion work. Much of her work over the years has centered around young children's awareness of race and identity and adult skill development around this as well. As a consultant, Orinthia has facilitated numerous workshops and presentations. She has also presented at national conferences and has been a guest speaker at teacher preparation programs. Most recently Ms. Swindell has shifted her attention towards continuing to develop programming for girls in addition to growing her practice as an herbalist. One of her most esteemed accomplishments is being the mother of two amazing young men.