Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies

Date of Defense

8-12-2020

Graduate Advisor

Matthew Davis

Committee

Thomassina Hassler

Shante Lyons

Carl Hoagland

Abstract

In 1962, DeVerne Calloway was the first Black woman elected to the Missouri General Assembly and the first Black woman elected to any public office in the state of Missouri. A political activist and educator by nature, a legislator by trade, DeVerne has decades of historically documented critical work within the intersections of race, gender, and class. Her work, though well documented, remains undertheorized. This study seeks to explore DeVerne’s life and work through Black feminist theory and Critical Race Theory’s tenets of intersectionality and interest convergence, ultimately tracing her actions as a public intellectual. Written as an educational biography, this study focuses on delineating how DeVerne’s work cut through domains of power, shaping the political, social and cultural development of St. Louis’s Black community.

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