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Dr. Bettina L. Love often recounts hearing the Atlanta-based duo, Outkast, rap about the South for the first time. That moment awakened in her an understanding of her father, her brother, and her Southern lineage. To this end, Dr. Love has been using her deep love for hip-hop music and culture to educate, uplift, and affirm her students and teach fellow educators how to do the same.

As an author and educator Dr. Love has been a pioneer in abolitionist teaching in the U.S. education system for over 15 years. With areas of expertise in hip-hop education, Black girlhood, diversity and social justice, hip-hop feminism, and critical media literacy, her work centers on Black children's self-actualization and development through non-traditional pedagogical practices that put the children's identities and cultures first. Dr. Love—a dynamic public speaker, former elementary school teacher, and current Associate Professor of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia—is the author of two books: Hip hop's Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Identities and Politics in the New South and We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. Dr. Love was the 2016 recipient of the Nasir Jones Fellowship at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.

Dr. Love's praxis necessitates that educators, particularly white educators, know and understand the history of white supremacist structures in education before they step into a classroom with Black students. Unless equipped with the appropriate language and training to negate the violent effects of white supremacy, educators often perpetuate anti-Blackness in the classroom. She says that students' culture cannot be an "afterthought"—it must be put at the forefront of their education. Doing so creates space for students to learn in a way that bridges the gap between their lived realities and academic lives.

Abolition and a deep love for students are at the core of Dr. Love's pedagogy and practice. In an Education Week essay, "An Essay for Teachers Who Understand Racism Is Real," Dr. Love emphasizes that reform is not enough, that "too often, reform is rooted in Whiteness because it appeases White liberals who need to see change but want to maintain their status, power, and supremacy." Only from the framework of abolition can Black students engage in an education that does not cause them harm or erase their identities but rather validates, centers, and uplifts students and their respective communities. "Abolitionism is not a social-justice trend," Dr. Love continues. "It is a way of life defined by a commitment to working toward a humanity where no one is disposable, prisons no longer exist, being Black is not a crime, teachers have high expectations for Black and Brown children, and joy is seen as a foundation of learning."