DR. BETTINA LOVE, ABOLITIONIST & FREEDOM DREAMER

Dr. Bettina L. Love holds the prestigious William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller “Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal.” In 2022, the Kennedy Center recognized Dr. Love as one of the Next 50 Leaders dedicated to making the world more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate.

As a co-founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN), Dr. Love actively contributes to its mission of nurturing and empowering teachers and parents who are committed to fighting injustice within their educational institutions and communities. She has played a pivotal role in overseeing the distribution of over $250,000 in grants to abolitionist initiatives across the nation. Notably, Dr. Love is also a founding member of the Task Force that initiated the groundbreaking program “In Her Hands,” one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. This program has successfully disbursed over $15 million to support Black women in Georgia.

Renowned as a highly sought-after public speaker, Dr. Love covers a wide range of compelling topics in her engagements, including abolitionist teaching, anti-racism, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, educational reparations, and the use of art-based education to foster youth civic engagement. Her profound insights and expertise have earned her recognition in various news outlets, including NPR, PBS, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Time, Education Week, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dr. Love is also the celebrated author of the bestseller “We Want To Do More Than Survive,” solidifying her position as a leading voice in the field of education and social justice.

Punished For Dreaming Book Trailer

EARLY PRAISE

Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

“I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education ‘reform’ in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I loved to dream.”

Ibram X. Kendi, NYT bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist

“In Punished for Dreaming, Prof. Bettina Love powerfully documents how, since the mid-1950s, anti-Black policies, prettied up in the White rage language of “reform” and “school choice,” actually put Black children and their education on the auction block. The damage has been both unfathomable and calculable. This brilliant book examines not only the series of policies that proudly defied Brown, stealthily gutted public education,and quietly sustained and entrenched separate and unequal, but also explores how to undo the trauma so that Black children can heal, grow, and thrive.

Carol Anderson, author of White Rage, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Emory University

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“In this deeply personal account of loss and structural harm, Love shows how the education crisis of the Reagan era was not only manufactured but actively destroyed the lives of millions of children all over the country. Punished for Dreaming is a story about reform gone wrong and an urgent call to action for educators and those committed to the well-being of Black people in public education and beyond.”
Salamishah Tillet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, Contributing Critic-at-Large, New York Times

“Bettina Love blends brilliance, warmth, and a deep commitment to the pursuit of justice for all our nation’s children seamlessly.  In every room she is in, she is the star.”

Brittney Cooper, NYT bestselling author of Eloquent Rage
“Love is one of our fiercest advocates for the lives and education of Black children. Her insights into the way neoliberal education policies can harm Black promise and her efforts to humanize Black children are the intervention America needs.”

 Michael Eric Dyson, NYT bestselling author

In this prequel to The New Jim Crow, Dr. Love serves up a blistering account of four decades of educational reform through the lens of the people who lived it. Punished for Dreaming lays bare the devastating effect on 25 Black Americans caught in the intersection of economic gain and racist ideology. Then with input from leading U.S. economistsDr. Love offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.

PUNISHED FOR DREAMING BETTINA LOVE NYTBS2
“When Black people have dreamed big, organized effectively, and fought hard enough that justice and grand-scale change seem not only possible but imminent—the insidious pushback to this comes in the form of reform.”

PUNISHED FOR DREAMING
-Bettina Love

MEET dr. love

abolitionist educator

Dr. Love is a sought-after public speaker on a range of topics, including abolitionist teaching, education reform, anti-racism, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, educational reparations, Hip Hop feminism, arts-based education to foster youth civic engagement.  In 2022, The Kennedy Center named Dr. Love One Of The Next 50 Leaders making the world more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate.

dr love photo

For her work in the field of Hip Hop education, in 2016, Dr. Love was named the Nasir Jones HipHop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. In April of 2017, Dr. Love participated in a one-on-one public lecture with late feminist icon, bell hooks, focused on the liberatory education practices of Black and Brown children. In 2018, Georgia’s House of Representatives presented Dr. Love with a resolution for her impact on the field of education. She has also provided commentary for various news outlets including NPR, PBS, Ed Week, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

DR. LOVE'S PUBLIC SPEAKING TOPICS:

  • ABOLITIONIST TEACHING
  • EDUCATION REFORM
  • ANTI-RACISM
  • HIP HOP EDUCATION
  • BLACK GIRLHOOD
  • QUEER YOUTH
  • EDUCATION REPARATIONS
  • HIP HOP FEMINISM
  • ARTS-BASED EDUCATION
DR LOVE

Previous Speaking engagements

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
university of
pittsburgh
COLUMBIA
COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY
nais
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
boost
BOOST
CONFERENCE
harvard
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
HOUSTON
UNIVERSITY OF
HOUSTON
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DR LOVE 2

“Education can’t save us, we have to save education.”

-DR. BETTINA L. LOVE

PUNISHED FOR DREAMING
-Bettina Love

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books
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Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

WE WANT TO DO MORE THAN SURVIVE
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We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom​

HIP HOPS LITTLE SISTER SPEAKS
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HIP HOP'S LI'L SISTAS SPEAK: NEGOTIATING HIP HOP IDENTITIES AND POLITICS IN THE NEW SOUTH

media

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Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools
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Hip hip, grit, and academic success: Bettina Love at TEDxUGA
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“Education Liberates” featuring bell hooks and Bettina Love

ARTICLES

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