Caroline James
- Prose-Stories
- Sep 8, 2023
- 2 min read
Prose-Stories / Justice + Education
"We the Sojourners"
The Sojourner, an organization Caroline James (pictured) started in August 2021, has created ” WE The Sojourners” which is a multi-social media project where the “isms” that keep us from creating the most equitable societies are deeply examined using research, personal stories and a lot of humor. Designed to be approachable, “WE The Sojourners” is not a political ecosystem, but rather explores the assumptions and gaps that the political stuff can overshadow [AKA the feminist bits]. The aim of this work is to make deep learning about social justice commonplace (and not simply the musings of academics, activists and politicians.) WE The Sojourners officially launches (with instagram, tik-tok, youtube and weekly articles) in early January 2022. In September 2021, The Sojourner won a racial equity grant from Humanity in Action, an international organization which works to promote knowledge, community and action in defense of human rights, pluralism and democracy all over the world. The document you have today is the seminal article created and released by The Sojourner in September of 2021 as a permanent introductory article to challenge, assess and redefine whether or not justice is real, why it is/isn’t, and potential ways forward.
This creative-nonfiction article about reframing justice using various markers of assessing our current framework of justice was originally printed as the pre-launch of “The Sojourner.” The Sojourner (launched and designed in 2021), is the first social media and web-based “freedom school.” The Sojourner empowers The People to facilitate a more thorough human rights movement where critical (and accurate) deconstructions of injustice are simply common knowledge. The Sojourner combines a black feminist lens with a deeply interdisciplinary reading of research and human rights issues; as Audre Lorde famously teaches, “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The Sojourner assumes that there is no such thing as single-issue or group justice either.
About Caroline
Caroline James has had a long career in weaving social justice, black feminism, and education together. As an elementary educator in New Orleans, Caroline won Teach for America’s National Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014. Since leaving the classroom, Caroline has brought her expertise to bear in managing well over 50 Teach For America educators in the Chicago Public School System, being an Assistant Principal in Brooklyn, New York, serving as an advisor for the design of an LGBTQIA school. In 2017, Caroline was named a Bill Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge. Caroline has formally explored education and diversity issues in Poland, India, Nepal, and France. In 2021 Caroline was named one of six Humanity in Action “Racial Equity Grant” recipients for “WE The Sojourners.”
