The homeschooling population in the United States is predominantly white and concentrated in suburban or rural areas. In 2016, black children accounted for 8 percent of the 1.7 million homeschooled students nationally, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. What federal education data don’t show, though, is what’s driving those 136,000 or so black students and their families into homeschooling. Nor do the data reveal the tenacity and tradition that bond this homeschooling movement—a movement that challenges many of the prevailing stereotypes about homeschooling, which tends to be characterized as the province of conservative Christians, public-school opponents, and government skeptics.

For VaiVai and many other black homeschoolers, seizing control of their children’s schooling is an act of affirmation—a means of liberating themselves from the systemic racism embedded in so many of today’s schools and continuing the campaign for educational independence launched by their ancestors more than a century ago. In doing so, many are channeling an often overlooked history of black learning in America that’s rooted in liberation from enslavement. When seen in this light, the modern black-homeschooling movement is evocative of African Americans’ generations-long struggle to change their children’s destiny through education—and to do so themselves.

VaiVai first considered homeschooling when Cameren, who’d previously attended two Baltimore charter schools, was in fourth grade. By fifth grade, it was a fait accompli. Cameren, who was in agreement, would be taught at home. Driven by a deep connection to black culture, VaiVai infuses her daughter’s homeschool curriculum with histories and knowledge that counter the dominant narrative of black inferiority pervasive in schools and the media—abstaining from European and Anglo-American viewpoints, and incorporating the history of the African diaspora into lessons across subjects.

“The No. 1 thing is to throw out all of those standards that white America will tell you your child should [know],” VaiVai said, referring to curricula and teaching practices that fail to emphasize black excellence—for example, ignoring early accomplishments of Africans and African Americans in math and science. Accepting these standards, VaiVai continued, is what “screwed us up.”

The movement certainly has detractors. Among them are those who take issue with homeschooling more generally, arguing that it is not sufficiently regulated as to guarantee children are getting a quality education. And homeschooling often comes under scrutiny for its perceived limitations when it comes to ensuring kids’ socialization—the ramifications potentially intensified for black kids considering they, as a group, are still contending with entrenched marginalization. (Although, of course, many black homeschooling parents are very attuned to the need to socialize their children to prepare them for the outside world. “We raise our children to understand that it’s a very big world,” said Tanisha Armstrong, a black homeschooling parent. Parents like herself, she continued, tell their kids: “Get out there. Be friendly. Be you. And don’t worry about any of the other little things that may come in and interrupt that.”)