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ASHLEIGH WADE: Black girlhood is important to discuss, particularly in today's time because there are so many experiences that Black girls have that are meaningful not only within Black culture

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and Black cultural production, but also meaningful in helping us to understand societies around us. So how Black girls navigate their various social worlds, how they navigate their cultural experiences,

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is relevant to all of us. And so it's really important for us to think about how Black girls move in the world. One of the things that I think is really important

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to understand about Black girlhood is that it is its own site of cultural study and analysis and production. And so I think sometimes we tend to think of Black girlhood

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as maybe derivative of broader girlhood, and that's not necessarily the case. And I think one of the things that makes Black girlhood unique is that it's rooted in Black girls' experiences, which

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are different than girls who are not Black because Black girls have to contend with anti-Blackness at the same time that they're contending with sexism. And so that intersection of race and gender

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and also class, when we think more broadly about Black girls across the globe, that intersection of identities makes Black girlhood unique to Black girls.

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There are a lot of ways that Black people in general have to use various forms of sources to study Black culture, even though we aren't necessarily present within those sources.

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And so there's a concept within history and archival study of reading for the silences or reading for the absences. And so I think that one way to think about how to study Black girls within sources, where they're not

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necessarily present, is to ask, well, who is present from the source, who is missing from this source, why are they missing, and then where might we find alternate perspectives to this source, where Black girls

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are not necessarily included. And so I think that the absence of Black girls within some sources is important to understanding Black girlhood and what Black girls are experiencing,

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because that absence reflects a larger societal structure that is not including Black girls in a lot of different conversations. Students should absolutely use those sources,

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but use them with the caveat that not everything that they want to know from this particular source about Black girls can be known. And I think that that's one thing that is present

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a lot when we talk about Black girls studies, is that there are some things within our research that we just can't know about Black girls. And I know that's hard to accept as scholars because our goal is

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to ask questions and then find answers. But I think that students have to understand that when certain perspectives are missing, you just can't know the answer fully

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until you're able to find sources where those perspectives are included. So I think there are several ways to look at sources where Black girls voices are included.

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One, I think you have to analyze what the source is. Who has access to this source? For example, a lot of my research for my book project, Black Girl Autopoetics, included the Brownies book,

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which was a literary magazine published in 1920 and 1921 by W.E.B du Bois and Jesse Redmond Fawcett. And so knowing who the publishers are is important because W.E.B du Bois, in particular,

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had very specific ideas about racial uplift and what that required. Also, thinking about the Brownies book as a magazine that people would have had to buy and subscribe

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to and have literacy in order to participate in. So there are all these different elements of the source that we have to consider when we're looking at sources about Black girls, because I think that will also

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help us to have a more expansive analysis of which Black girls are included, which Black girls are not included, and why does that discrepancy exist. When it comes to using periodicals

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to study Black girlhood, I think that there are several things that students need to consider. One is that the periodicals represent the time period in which they were created.

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And so I think it's important to think about context when you're using periodicals to study Black girlhood. But I also think that periodicals can be a very useful way of getting at things that

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were happening during the time that the periodicals were written. And so I think it's a really valuable source for students to use in their research, but I also

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think that it's important for students to-- I think the word I want to use is "corroborating" resources to go alongside the periodicals. And I say that just because, as I stated,

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periodicals do reflect the time period that they come from. And so, for example, if we're talking about the 1960s versus the 1990s, you're going to see more engagement with certain topics in the '90s that you don't necessarily see

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in the '60s. So when we're talking about, I don't know, different types of engagement with media. So in the '90s, we have different types of media than we

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do in the '60s in terms of popular culture and media that girls are engaging with and using to tell their stories. And so I think that because there is that very contextual element of periodicals,

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that it's important to study the periodicals alongside different types of sources that can give you a fuller picture of what people's experiences were like during that time.

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One place to start would be with people who are considered to be the pioneers of Black girlhood studies. So, for example, Ruth Nicole Brown

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has two books that I think are very crucial to getting a basic foundation of Black girlhood studies and what the field is about. One of them is called Black Girlhood Celebration,

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and the other is called Hear Our Truths. I think starting there, and then also looking to edited collections, like the Black Girlhood Studies Collection by Aria S. Holiday.

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And I think starting with those sources is a good place because they offer a range of voices within Black girlhood. But I think they also get at what Black girlhood studies as a field is trying to do.

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And so I think those would be good starting points in terms of thinking about how to analyze Black girlhood sources. I think reading works by people who

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write about Black girlhood is a good starting point for understanding methodologies with research related to Black girlhood, and so while it is most helpful to read works that

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are created in collaboration with Black girls themselves, I think that there are so many different types of methodologies within Black girlhood studies that there's a lot that students can begin to dig into as they're trying to understand how

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to design and execute a project, a research project, about Black girlhood. I really hope that students of all backgrounds understand the value of studying Black girls and Black girlhood,

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and especially in the moment that we're in, where it seems like there is more representation in terms of Black girls being included more in different periodicals or print sources,

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while at the same time, it's more of a-- sometimes, it's more of a surface level inclusion that doesn't really get at the heart of what Black girls are experiencing, especially around issues of race and class.

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And so I just hope that students will be excited to identify where these gaps are in the research and look for ways to fill them.