Keepers of the Knowledge: Counterstories of Black Women Principals Navigating Neoliberalism and School Closures in Atlanta, Georgia

This dissertation centers the leadership of Black women principals in Atlanta Public Schools (APS) whose schools were targeted for closure under neoliberal education reform. Using fugitive methodology as both framework and practice, this study amplifies the counterstories of women who resisted systemic erasure, sustained their school communities, and protected the intellectual life of Black children in spaces marked for displacement. Rather than framing school closures as isolated policy decisions, this work situates them within a larger structure of racialized disinvestment, gentrification, and control. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, counterstorytelling, and a fugitive research tradition, this study documents how Black women principals led with vision and subversion. As both researcher and participant, I engaged in a relational and reflexive process that disrupted dominant narratives and illuminated what traditional research frameworks often obscure. Leadership in Black schools is always about more than policy. It is about survival, resistance, and care. The findings reveal the emotional labor, political acuity, and fugitive strategies these principals enacted to advocate for their communities and students, even when their schools were slated for closure. This study introduces victorious consciousness as a framework for understanding success. Success is not defined through policy wins, but through the enduring presence of Black leadership and the spaces of care that remain. Fugitive methodology is not simply a theoretical lens. It is the method, the stance, and the truth-telling practice that allowed this research to become an act of resistance. By honoring the work of these Black women, this dissertation offers a living archive of survival and a roadmap for future scholars and leaders who refuse to be erased.