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https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/civil-rights-in-america/eisenhower-little-rock/ The History of African-American education deals with the public and private schools at all levels used by African Americans in the United States and for the related policies and debates. Black schools, also referred to as "Negro schools" and "
colored school Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...
s", were racially segregated schools in the United States that originated in the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. They were created in Southern states under biracial Republican governments as free public schools for the formerly enslaved. All their students were blacks. After 1877, conservative whites took control across the South. They continued the black schools, but at a much lower funding rate than white schools.


History


Reconstruction Era

During the Reconstruction Era (1863-1876) hundreds of schools for blacks were created in the South by the government, by white religious groups, and by the blacks themselves. Legislatures of Republican freedmen and whites established public schools for the first time during the Reconstruction era. After the war, Northern missionaries founded numerous private academies and colleges for freedmen across the South. A number of schools were also set up in the North, such as the
African Free School The African Free School was a school for children of slaves and free people of color in New York City. It was founded by members of the New York Manumission Society, including Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, on November 2, 1787. Many of its alumn ...
in New York and the
Abiel Smith School Abiel Smith School, founded in 1835, is a school located at 46 Joy Street in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, adjacent to the African Meeting House. It is named for Abiel Smith, a white philanthropist who left money (an estimated $4,000) in h ...
in Boston.


Creating private schools

Most of the major Protestant bodies participated in establishing, staffing and funding the schools. The American Missionary Association was especially active. They provided funding into the 20th century. The
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
also established a few black schools via using nuns, such as St. Frances Academy in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
(1828) and St. Mary's Academy in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
(1867). The all-black
African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...
(AME) put a high premium on education. In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the
Methodist Episcopal Church The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...
, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU),
Wilberforce University Wilberforce University is a private historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. It participates ...
in Ohio. By 1880, AME operated over 2,000 schools, chiefly in the South, with 155,000 students. For school houses they used church buildings; the ministers and their wives were the teachers; the congregations raised the money to keep schools operating at a time the segregated public schools were starved of funds.


Freedman Bureau schools

The federal government through the Freedmen's Bureau, a part of the U.S. Army, created a vast network of schools in camps it operated for freed Blacks. Much of the leadership came from Northern blacks who had never been slaves who moved South. The African-American community engaged in a long-term struggle for quality public schools. Historian Hilary Green says it "was not merely a fight for access to literacy and education, but one for freedom, citizenship, and a new postwar social order." The black community and its white supporters in the North emphasized the critical role of education is the foundation for establishing equality in civil rights. Anti-literacy laws for both free and enslaved black people had been in force in many southern states since the 1830s, The widespread illiteracy made it urgent that high on the African-American agenda was creating new schooling opportunities, including both private schools and public schools for black children funded by state taxes. The states did pass suitable laws during Reconstruction, but the implementation was weak in most rural areas, and with uneven results in urban areas. After Reconstruction ended the tax money was limited, but local blacks and national religious groups and philanthropists helped out. Integrated public schools meant local white teachers in charge, and they were not trusted. The black leadership generally supported segregated all-black schools. The black community wanted black principals and teachers, or (in private schools) highly supportive whites sponsored by northern churches. Public schools were segregated throughout the South during Reconstruction and afterward into the 1950s. New Orleans was a partial exception: its schools were usually integrated during Reconstruction. In the era of Reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau opened 1000 schools across the South for black children using federal funds. Enrollments were high and enthusiastic. Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for blacks and by the end of 1865, more than 90,000 Freedmen were enrolled as students in public schools. The school curriculum resembled that of schools in the north. By the end of Reconstruction, however, state funding for black schools was minimal, and facilities were quite poor. Many Freedman Bureau teachers were well-educated Yankee women motivated by religion and abolitionism. Half the teachers were southern whites; one-third were blacks, and one-sixth were northern whites. Black men slightly outnumbered black women. The salary was the strongest motivation except for the northerners, who were typically funded by northern organizations and had a humanitarian motivation. As a group, only the black cohort showed a commitment to racial equality; they were the ones most likely to remain teachers.


Southern states create public schools

Historian James D. Anderson argues that the freed slaves were the first Southerners "to campaign for universal, state-supported public education". Blacks in the Republican coalition played a critical role in establishing the principle in state constitutions for the first time during congressional Reconstruction. Some slaves had learned to read from White playmates or colleagues before formal education was allowed by law; African Americans started "native schools" before the end of the war; Sabbath schools were another widespread means that freedmen developed to teach literacy. When they gained suffrage, Black politicians took this commitment to public education to state constitutional conventions. The Republicans created a system of public schools, which were segregated by race everywhere except New Orleans. Generally, elementary and a few secondary schools were built in most cities, and occasionally in the countryside, but the South had few cities. The rural areas faced many difficulties opening and maintaining public schools. In the country, the public school was often a one-room affair that attracted about half the younger children. The teachers were poorly paid, and their pay was often in arrears. Conservatives contended the rural schools were too expensive and unnecessary for a region where the vast majority of people were cotton or tobacco farmers. They had no expectation of better education for their residents. One historian found that the schools were less effective than they might have been because "poverty, the inability of the states to collect taxes, and inefficiency and corruption in many places prevented successful operation of the schools". After Reconstruction ended and White elected officials disenfranchised Blacks and imposed Jim Crow laws, they consistently underfunded Black institutions, including the schools. According to Barry Crouch, George Ruby, a mulatto from New England was a leader in black education in Louisiana from 1863 to 1866. The Army assigned Ruby to the Freedmen's Bureau. His roles encompassed that of a teacher, a school administrator, and a mobile inspector for the Bureau. His responsibilities included assessing local conditions, assisting in the establishment of black schools, and evaluating the performance of Bureau field officers. Ruby's endeavors were met with a positive response from the black population, who eagerly embraced education, but they also faced vehement opposition, including physical violence, from numerous planters and other white individuals. Ruby's career exemplifies the role played by the Black carpetbagger during the Civil War and Reconstruction era in Louisiana. According to Philip C. Kimball, under the leadership of Thomas Noble and the federal government's Freedmen's Bureau, a school system for Kentucky Blacks was created in the late 1860s. They persevered against the hostility of scattered white mobs, the inadequate training of some teachers, and minimal local or state tax support. With strong support from the black community and Northern churches, the new system grew rapidly in 1868 and 1869 to reach parity with the established white school system. Although federal funding ended in 1870, black schools multiplied until full state funding was assured in 1882.


Higher education: creating colleges

The Republican governments in every state founded state colleges for freedmen, such as Alcorn State University in Mississippi. They were funded by the state governments, and were kept in operation by the states after the Republicans lost control of state governments in the 1872-1877 period. To educate elementary school teachers the states and cities also created "normal schools" as part of the new high schools. They produced generations of teachers who were integral to the education of African American children under the segregated system. By 1900, the majority of African Americans were literate. In the late 19th century, the federal government established land grant legislation to provide funding for higher education across the United States. Learning that Blacks were excluded from land grant colleges in the South, in 1890 the federal government insisted that Southern states establish Black state institutions as
land grant colleges A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. Signed by Abraha ...
to provide for Black higher education, in order to continue to receive funds for their already established White schools. Some states classified their Black state colleges as land grant institutions. Former Congressman John Roy Lynch wrote: "there are very many liberal, fair-minded and influential Democrats in the state ississippiwho are strongly in favor of having the state provide for the liberal education of both races". According to a 2020 study by economist Trevon Logan, increases in Black politicians led to greater tax revenue, which was put towards public education spending (and land tenancy reforms). Logan finds that this led to greater literacy among Black men. At the beginning of the Reconstruction era, teachers in integrated schools were predominantly white. Black educators and leaders alleged that many of these white teachers "effectively convinced black students that they were inferior." This led to a distrust of the structure of public education at that time. Across the entire South Virtually all public and private schools had either an all-white or an all-black student body in the 19th century and down to the 1950s.
Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every a ...
was the major exception, but a state law in Kentucky forced it to stop enrolling blacks in 1904.
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
was a partial exception: its elementary and high schools were partly integrated during Reconstruction. Schools for black students typically had both white and black teachers and other employees.


Jim Crow era after the end of Reconstruction in 1876

After the white Democrats regained power in Southern states in the 1870s, during the next two decades they imposed
Jim Crow laws mandating segregation. They disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites through poll taxes and literacy tests. Services for black schools (and any black institution) routinely received far less financial support than white schools. In addition, the South was extremely poor for years in the aftermath of the war, its infrastructure destroyed, and dependent on an agricultural economy despite falling cotton prices. Into the 20th century, black schools had second-hand books and buildings (see
Station One School Station One School is a former school located in the hamlet of Chaires, Leon County, Florida. The school was founded because the population of eastern Leon County was growing and there was no school closer than Tallahassee, away. The first menti ...
), and teachers were paid less and had larger classes."Beginnings of black education"
, The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia. Virginia Historical Society. Retrieved 4/12/09.
In
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, however, because public school teachers were federal employees,
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
and Caucasian teachers were paid the same. The Tilden-Hayes compromise was enacted in 1877 between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford Hayes, which mainly meant a final withdrawal of the federal troops from the disputed southern states. With this withdrawal of federal troops meant more segregation and less national control of southern states K-12 public education system. The Virginia Constitution of 1870 mandated a system of public education for the first time, but the newly established schools were operated on a segregated basis. In these early schools, which were mostly rural, as was characteristic of the South, classes were most often taught by a single teacher, who taught all subjects, ages, and grades. Chronic underfunding led to constantly over-populated schools, despite the relatively low percentage of African-American students in schools overall. In 1900, the average black school in Virginia had 37 percent more pupils in attendance than the average white school. This discrimination continued for several years, as demonstrated by the fact that in 1937–38, in
Halifax County, Virginia Halifax County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 34,022. Its county seat is Halifax. History Occupied by varying cultures of indigenous peoples for thousands of years, in histo ...
, the total value of white school property was $561,262, contrasted to only $176,881 for the county's black schools.


20th century

Continuing to see education as the primary route of advancement and critical for the race, many talented blacks went into teaching, which had high respect as a profession. Segregated schools for blacks were underfunded in the South and ran on shortened schedules in rural areas. Despite segregation, in Washington, DC by contrast, as Federal employees, black and white teachers were paid on the same scale. Outstanding black teachers in the North received advanced degrees and taught in highly regarded schools, which trained the next generation of leaders in cities such as Chicago, Washington, and New York, whose black populations had increased in the 20th century due to the Great Migration. Education was one of the major achievements of the black community in the 19th century. Blacks in
Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
governments had supported the establishment of public education in every Southern state. Despite the difficulties, with the enormous eagerness of
freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...
for education, by 1900 the African-American community had trained and put to work 30,000 African-American teachers in the South. In addition, a majority of the black population had achieved
literacy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...
. Not all the teachers had a full 4-year
college degree An academic degree is a qualification awarded to students upon successful completion of a course of study in higher education, usually at a college or university. These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, usually including unde ...
in those years, but the shorter terms of normal schools were part of the system of teacher training in both the North and the South to serve the many new communities across the frontier. African-American teachers got many children and adults started on education. Northern alliances had helped fund normal schools and colleges to teach African-American teachers, as well as create other professional classes. The American Missionary Association, supported largely by the
Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
and
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
churches, had helped fund and staff numerous private schools and colleges in the South, who collaborated with black communities to train generations of teachers and other leaders. Major 20th-century
industrialists A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
, such as
George Eastman George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman ...
of
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
, acted as philanthropists and made substantial donations to black educational institutions such as
Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...
. In 1862, the Congress passed the ''
Morrill Act The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or s ...
'', which established federal funding of a
land grant college A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. Signed by Abraha ...
in each state, but 17 states refused to admit black students to their land grant colleges. In response, Congress enacted the second ''Morrill Act'' of 1890, which required states that excluded blacks from their existing land grant colleges to open separate institutions and to equitably divide the funds between the schools. The colleges founded in response to the second ''Morill Act'' became today's public
historically black colleges and universities Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. ...
(HBCUs) and, together with the private HBCUs and the unsegregated colleges in the North and West, provided higher educational opportunities to African Americans. Federally funded extension agents from the land grant colleges spread knowledge about scientific agriculture and home economics to rural communities with agents from the HBCUs focusing on black farmers and families. In the 19th century, blacks formed fraternal organizations across the South and the North, including an increasing number of women's clubs. They created and supported institutions that increased education, health and welfare for black communities. After the turn of the 20th century, black men and women also began to found their own college fraternities and sororities to create additional networks for lifelong service and collaboration. For example, Alpha Phi Alpha the first black intercollegiate fraternity was founded at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1906. These were part of the new organizations that strengthened independent community life under segregation. Tuskegee took the lead in spreading industrial education to Africa, typically in cooperation with church missionary efforts.


Rosenwald Schools

Julius Rosenwald Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in ...
was a philanthropist who owned Sears, Roebuck, and Company. He was responsible for establishing the
Rosenwald Fund The Rosenwald Fund (also known as the Rosenwald Foundation, the Julius Rosenwald Fund, and the Julius Rosenwald Foundation) was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald and his family for "the well-being of mankind." Rosenwald became part-owner of S ...
. After meeting
Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
in 1911, Rosenwald created his fund to improve the education of southern blacks by building schools, mostly in rural areas. More than 5,300 were built in the South by the time of Rosenwald's death in 1932. He created a system requiring matching public funds and interracial community cooperation for the maintenance and operation of schools. Black communities essentially taxed themselves twice to raise money to support new schools, often donating land and labor to get them built. With increasing urbanization, Rosenwald schools in many rural areas were abandoned. Some have been converted into community centers and in more urban areas, maintained or renovated as schools. In modern times the National Trust for Historic Preservation has called Rosenwald Schools as worthy of preservation as "beacons of African American education". By 2009 many communities restored Rosenwald schools.


Sarah Roberts vs. City of Boston

The case of Sarah Roberts vs the City of Boston is a case about a five-year old girl named Sarah Roberts and her parents, who tried to send her to a nearby, predominantly white school during the Jim Crow era of segregation in the United States. She was denied admission, however, based on her race as an African American girl, marking an early effort to challenge racial segregation through the education system. It was a landmark court case that proved to enforce the ‘separate, but equal’ precedent, as Judge Shaw ruled that school officials did, in fact, have the authority to decline admission from some students based on race because it was not a violation of the black student’s rights. The Sarah vs City of Boston case likewise laid the groundwork for many future racial challenges for equal opportunity, especially in education. Although the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled against the Roberts family, the hearing ultimately highlighted the injustice of segregation in the United States Education System. Additionally, the ideas from this challenge were known to herald the well-known 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case that declared the racial separation of public schools by state legislation was unconstitutional. The Sarah Roberts Case contributed significantly to the long history of societal conflict in civil rights that eventually led to reformation in the education system.


Fight for equal funding

In the 1930s the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP) launched a national campaign to achieve equal schools within the "
separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protec ...
" framework of the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in ''
Plessy v. Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in qualit ...
''. White hostility towards this campaign kept black schools from necessary resources. According to ''Rethinking Schools'' magazine, "Over the first three decades of the 20th century, the funding gap between black and white schools in the South increasingly widened. NAACP studies of unequal expenditures in the mid-to-late 1920s found that Georgia spent $4.59 per year on each African-American child as opposed to $36.29 on each white child. A study by Doxey Wilkerson at the end of the 1930s found that only 19 percent of 14- to 17-year-old African Americans were enrolled in high school."Lowe, R
"The Strange History of School Desegregation"
, '' Rethinking Schools''. Volume 18, No. 3, Spring 2004. Retrieved 4/12/09.
The NAACP won several victories with this campaign, particularly around salary equalization.


Citizenship Schools in 1950s

Septima Clark was an American educator, civil rights activist, and the creator of citizenship schools in 1957. Clark's project initially developed from secret literacy courses she held for African American adults in the Deep South. Citizenship schools helped black southerners push for the right to vote, as well as create activists and leaders for the Civil Rights Movement, using a curriculum that instilled self-pride, cultural pride, literacy, and a sense of one's citizenship rights. The citizenship school project trained over 10,000 citizenship school teachers who led over 800 citizenship schools throughout the South that was responsible for registering approximately 700,000 African Americans to vote.


Freedom Schools in 1960s

An activist of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1964, Charles Cobb, proposed that the organization sponsor a network of
Freedom Schools Freedom Schools were temporary, alternative, and free schools for African Americans mostly in the South. They were originally part of a nationwide effort during the Civil Rights Movement to organize African Americans to achieve social, political and ...
. Originally, Freedom Schools were organized to achieve social, political, and economic equality by teaching African American students to be social change agents for the Civil Rights Movement; Black educators and activists later utilized the schools to provide schooling in areas where black public schools were closed in reaction to the ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' ruling. More than 40 of these free schools existed by the end of the summer in 1964 serving close to 3,000 students.


Desegregation

Public schools were technically desegregated in the United States in 1954 by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''Brown vs Board of Education''. Some schools, such as the
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, colloquially referred to as BPI, Poly, and The Institute, is a U.S. public high school founded in 1883. Established as an all-male manual trade / vocational school by the Baltimore City Council and the Balti ...
, were forced into a limited form of desegregation before that; with the
Baltimore City Public School System Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), also referred to as Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS) or City Schools, is a public school district in the city of Baltimore, state of Maryland, United States. It serves the youth of Baltimore Cit ...
voting to desegregate the prestigious advanced placement program in 1952. However, many were still ''de facto'' segregated due to inequality in housing and patterns of racial segregation in neighborhoods. President Dwight Eisenhower enforced the Supreme Court's decision by sending
US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
troops to
Little Rock, Arkansas ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...
to protect the "
Little Rock Nine The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering ...
" students' entry to school in 1957, thus setting a precedent for the Executive Branch to enforce Supreme Court rulings related to racial integration. He was the first president since Reconstruction to send Federal troops into the South to protect the rights of African Americans.


Busing

In the 1971 '' Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education'' ruling, the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to force mandatory busing on
Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
and other cities nationwide in order to affect student assignment based on race and to attempt to further integrate schools. This was meant to combat patterns of ''de facto'' segregation that had developed in northern as well as southern cities. The 1974 '' Milliken v. Bradley'' decision placed a limitation on ''Swann'' when the court ruled that students could only be bused across district lines when evidence existed of ''de jure'' segregation across multiple school districts. In the 1970s and 1980s, under federal court supervision, many school districts implemented mandatory busing plans within their districts. Busing was controversial because it took students out of their own neighborhoods and further away from their parents' supervision and support. Even young students sometimes had lengthy bus rides each day. Districts also experimented with creating incentives, for instance, the creation of
magnet school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...
s to attract different students voluntarily.


21st century


Re-segregation

According to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the desegregation of U.S. public schools peaked in 1988; since then, schools have become more segregated because of changes in demographic residential patterns with continuing growth in suburbs and new communities.
Jonathan Kozol Jonathan Kozol (born September 5, 1936) is an American writer, progressive activist, and educator, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Education and experience Born to Harry Kozol and Ruth (Massell) Kozol, Jon ...
, author of '' The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America'', reports that as of 2005, the proportion of Black students at majority-white schools was at "a level lower than in any year since 1968." Changing population patterns, with dramatically increased growth in the South and
Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
, decreases in old industrial cities, and much increased immigration of new ethnic groups, have altered school populations in many areas. Black school districts continue to try various programs to improve student and school performance, including magnet schools and special programs related to the economic standing of families.
Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
proposed incorporating some suburban districts within city limits to enlarge its school-system catchment area. It wanted to create a "one tax, one school" system that would also allow it to create magnet programs to increase diversity in now predominantly white schools. Ernest Chambers, a 34-year-serving African-American state senator from
North Omaha, Nebraska North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the ea ...
, believed a different solution was needed. Some observers said that in practical terms, public schools in Omaha had been re-segregated since the end of busing in 1999. In 2006, Chambers offered an amendment to the Omaha school reform bill in the
Nebraska State Legislature The Nebraska Legislature (also called the Unicameral) is the legislature of the U.S. state of Nebraska. The Legislature meets at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. With 49 members, known as "senators", the Nebraska Legislature is the sm ...
which would provide for creation of three school districts in Omaha according to current racial demographics: black, white and Hispanic, with local community control of each district. He believed this would give the African-American community the chance to control a district in which their children were the majority. Chambers’ amendment was controversial. Opponents to the measure described it as "state-sponsored segregation". The authors of a 2003 Harvard study on re-segregation believe current trends in the South of white teachers leaving predominantly black schools is an inevitable result of federal court decisions limiting former methods of civil rights-era protections, such as busing and affirmative action in school admissions. Teachers and principals cite other issues, such as economic and cultural barriers in schools with high rates of poverty, as well as teachers' choices to work closer to home or in higher-performing schools. In some areas black teachers are also leaving the profession, resulting in teacher shortages.Jonnson, P. (January 21, 2003
"White teachers flee black schools"
''
The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
''. Retrieved 4/12/09.


See also

*
Education during the slave period in the United States During the era of slavery in the United States, the education of enslaved African Americans, except for religious instruction, was discouraged, and eventually made illegal in most of the Southern states. After 1831 (the revolt of Nat Turner), the ...
* African-American culture * African Americans * Freedmen's Schools *
Historically black colleges and universities Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. ...
** Fisk University **
Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
**
Meharry Medical College Meharry Medical College is a Private university, private Historically black colleges and universities, historically black Medical school in the United States, medical school affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Nashville, Te ...
**
Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...
***
Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
* Racial integration **
Timeline of the civil rights movement This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included secu ...
**
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
covers 1954 to 1968. **
Civil rights movement (1865–1896) The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the ...
covers the Reconstruction era and post-Reconstruction era **
Civil rights movement (1896–1954) The civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent action to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on American society – in its tactics, the increased social ...
, the Jim Crow era in the United States **
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
, Supreme Court outlaws segregated schooling in 1954 *** United States school desegregation case law (category) *** '' The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America'' by
Jonathan Kozol Jonathan Kozol (born September 5, 1936) is an American writer, progressive activist, and educator, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Education and experience Born to Harry Kozol and Ruth (Massell) Kozol, Jon ...


References


Further reading

* Allen, Quaylan, and Kimberly White-Smith. ""That's why I say stay in school": Black mothers’ parental involvement, cultural wealth, and exclusion in their son's schooling." ''Urban Education'' 53.3 (2018): 409-435
online
* Allen, Walter R., et al. "From Bakke to Fisher: African American Students in US Higher Education over Forty Years." ''RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences'' 4.6 (2018): 41–72
online
* Anderson, Eric, and Alfred A. Moss Jr. ''Dangerous Donations: Northern: Philanthropy and Southern Black Education, 1902-1930'' (University of Missouri Press, 1999). * Anderson, James D. "Northern foundations and the shaping of southern black rural education, 1902–1935." ''History of Education Quarterly'' 18.4 (1978): 371–396
online
* Anderson, James D. ''The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935'' (1988); a standard scholarly study
online
* Atwood, Rufus B. “The Origin and Development of the Negro Public College with Especial Reference to the Land-Grant College.” ''Journal of Negro Education'' 3 (Summer 1962): 240–50. * Atwood, Rufus, H. S. Smith, and Catherine O. Vaughan. “Negro Teachers in Northern Colleges and Universities in the United States.” ''Journal of Negro Education'' 18 (Fall 1949): 559–67. * Belt-Beyan, Phyllis M. ''The Emergence of African American Literacy Traditions: Family and Community Efforts in the Nineteenth Century'' (2004
online
* Bond, Horace Mann. ''The education of the Negro in the American social order'' (1934
online
* Bond, Horace Mann. ''Negro education in Alabama: a study in cotton and steel'' (1939
online
* Bullock, Henry Allen. ''A history of Negro education in the South, from 1619 to the present'' (Harvard UP, 1967), a standard scholarly histor
online
* Bush, V. Barbara, et al. eds. ''From diplomas to doctorates : the success of black women in higher education and its implications for equal educational opportunities for all'' (2009
online
* Coats, Linda T. "The Way We Learned: African American Students' Memories of Schooling in the Segregated South." ''Journal of Negro Education'' 79.1 (2010)
online
* Dorsey, Carolyn. "The African American Educational Experience," in Arvarh E. Strickland, and Robert E. Weems Jr. eds. ''The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide'' (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001) pp. 93–106. * Evans, Stephanie Y. ''Black women in the ivory tower, 1850-1954 : an intellectual history'' (2008
online
in higher education * Fairclough, Adam. "The costs of Brown: Black teachers and school integration." ''Journal of American History'' 91.1 (2004): 43–55
online
*Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. "Black Women and Higher Education: Spelman and Bennett Colleges Revisited." ''The Journal of Negro Education'', Vol. 51, No. 3, The Impact of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview (Summer, 1982), pp. 278–287. * Harlan, Louis R. “The Southern Education Board and the Race Issue in Public Education.” ''Journal of Southern History'' 23#2 (1957), pp. 189–202
online
* Lincoln, E.A. ''White Teachers, Black Schools, and the Inner City: Some Impressions and Concerns.'' (1975) * Link, William, A. ''A Hard Country and a Lonely Place: Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870-1920'' (1986). * McPherson, James M. "White liberals and black power in Negro education, 1865–1915." ''American Historical Review'' 75.5 (1970): 1357-1386. https://doi.org/10.2307/1844482 * Raffel, Jeffrey. ''Historical dictionary of school segregation and desegregation: The American experience'' (Bloomsbury, 1998
online
* Sitkoff, Harvard. "Segregation, desegregation, resegregation: African American education, a guide to the literature." ''OAH Magazine of History'' 15.2 (2001): 6-13; historiograph
online
* Webber, Thomas L. ''Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community, 1831-1865'' (W.W. Norton, 1981) * Williams, Heather Andrea. ''Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom'' (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2009
online
* Woodson, C. G. ''The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 A History Of The Education Of The Colored People Of The United States From The Beginning Of Slavery To The Civil War'' (1919
onlne
comprehensive coverage in 466 pages by a leading Black scholar.


Reconstruction studies

* Alexander, Roberta Sue. "Hostility and hope: Black education in North Carolina during presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 53.2 (1976): 113–132
online
* Anderson, James D. ''The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935'' (1988); a standard scholarly study
online
* Bentley, George R. ''A History of the Freedmen's Bureau'' (1955) a scholarly history
online
* Brazzell, Johnetta Cross. "Bricks without straw: Missionary-sponsored Black higher education in the post-emancipation era." ''Journal of Higher Education'' 63.1 (1992): 26-49
online
* Bullock, Henry Allen. ''A history of Negro education in the South, from 1619 to the present'' (Harvard UP, 1967), a standard scholarly histor
online
* Burton, Vernon. "Race and Reconstruction: Edgefield County, South Carolina." ''Journal of Social History'' (1978): 31–56
online
* Butchart, Ronald E. ''Northern schools, southern Blacks, and Reconstruction: Freedmen's education, 1862-1875'' (Praeger, 1980). * Butchart, Ronald E. "Black hope, white power: emancipation, reconstruction and the legacy of unequal schooling in the US South, 1861–1880." ''Paedagogica historica'' 46.1-2 (2010): 33–50. * Crouch, Barry A. "Black Education in Civil War and Reconstruction Louisiana: George T. Ruby, the Army, and the Freedmen's Bureau." ''Louisiana History'' 38.3 (1997): 287–308
online
* ; the major scholarly history. See also Eric Foner, ''A Short History of Reconstruction'' (2015) * * Goldhaber, Michael. "A mission unfulfilled: Freedmen's education in North Carolina, 1865-1870." ''Journal of Negro History'' 77.4 (1992): 199-210
online
* Green, Hilary. ''Educational reconstruction: African American schools in the urban south, 1865-1890'' (Fordham Univ Press, 2016). reen, Hilary. Educational reconstruction: African American schools in the urban south, 1865-1890. Fordham Univ Press, 2016. online* Harlan, Louis R. "Desegregation in New Orleans public schools during reconstruction." ''American Historical Review'' 67.3 (1962): 663–675
online
* Hornsby, Alton. "The Freedmen's Bureau Schools in Texas, 1865-1870". ''Southwestern Historical Quarterly'' (1973). 76 (4): 397–417
online
* Kimball, Philip C. "Freedom's Harvest: Freedmen's Schools in Kentucky after the Civil War." ''Filson Club History Quarterly'' (1980) 54#3 pp. 272–288. * Knight, Edgar Wallace. ''The influence of reconstruction on education in the South'' (1913) focus on North Carolina and South Carolin
online
* {{cite book , last=Lynch , first=John R. , title=The Facts of Reconstruction , place=New York , publisher=The Neale Publishing Company , year=1913 , url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16158/16158-h/16158-h.htm , access-date=May 14, 2006 , archive-date=January 13, 2020 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200113105047/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16158/16158-h/16158-h.htm , url-status=live * McPherson, James M. ''The struggle for equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction'' (Princeton University Press, 1964
online
* McPherson, James M. ''The abolitionist legacy: From reconstruction to the NAACP'' (Princeton University Press, 1995)
online
* Moneyhon, Carl H. "Public Education and Texas Reconstruction Politics, 1871-1874." ''Southwestern Historical Quarterly'' 92.3 (1989): 393–416
online
* Morris, Robert C. ''Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction, The Education of Freedmen in the South, 1861-1870'' (1982)
online
* Morrow, Ralph E. "Northern Methodism in the South during Reconstruction" ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'' 41#2 (1954), pp. 197–21
online
* Parker, Marjorie H. “Some Educational Activities of the Freedmen's Bureau.” ''Journal of Negro Education'' 23#1 (1954), pp. 9–21
online
* Pearce, Larry Wesley. "The American Missionary Association and the Freedmen's Bureau in Arkansas, 1866-1868". ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' (1971).30 (3): 242–259. doi:10.2307/40018672. JSTOR 40018672. * Phillips, Paul David. "Education of Blacks in Tennessee During Reconstruction, 1865-1870." ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly'' 46.2 (1987): 98-109
online
* Richardson, Joe M. ''Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861–1890'' (University of Georgia Press, 1986). * Rosen, F. Bruce. "The influence of the Peabody Fund on education in Reconstruction Florida." ''Florida Historical Quarterly'' 55.3 (1977): 310–320
online
* Span, Christopher M. ''From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875'' (2009) * Taylor, Kay Ann. "Mary S. Peake and Charlotte L. Forten: Black teachers during the Civil War and Reconstruction." ''Journal of Negro Education'' (2005): 124–137
online
* Vaughn, William Preston. ''Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 1865–1877'' (1974)
online
* White, Kenneth B. "The Alabama Freedmen's Bureau and Black Education: The Myth of Opportunity.“ ''Alabama Review'' 34.2 (1981): 107-124.


Primary sources

* Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior. ''Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, Volume II.'' (Bulletin, 1916, No. 39, 1917
online
African-American culture African Americans and education