Perspectives Of Black Histories In Schools

Concerned scholars and educators, since the early 20th century, have asked questions regarding the viability of Black history in k-12 schools. Over the years, we have seen k- 12 Black history expand as an academic subject, which has altered research questions that deviate from whether Black history is important to know to what type of Black history knowledge and pedagogies should be cultivated in classrooms in order to present a more holistic understanding of the group’ s historical significance. Research around this subject has been stagnated, typically focusing on the subject’s tokenism and problematic status within education. We know little of the state of k-12 Black history education and the different perspectives that Black history encompasses. The book, Perspectives on Black Histories in Schools, brings together a diverse group of scholars who discuss how k-12 Black history is understood in education. The book’s chapters focus on the question, what is Black history, and explores that inquiry through various mediums including its foundation, curriculum, pedagogy, policy, and psychology. The book provides researchers, teacher educators, and historians an examination into how much k- 12 Black history has come and yet how long it still needed to go.

In 1978, V. P. Franklin and James D. Anderson co-edited New Perspectives on Black Educational History. For Franklin, Anderson, and their contributors, there were glaring gaps in the historiography of Black education that each of the essays began to fill with new information or fresh perspectives. There have been a number of important studies on the history of African American education in the more than three decades since Franklin and Anderson published their volume that has pushed the field forward. Scholars have redefined the views of Black southern schools as simply inferior, demonstrated the active role Blacks had in creating and sustaining their schools, sharpened our understanding of Black teachers’ and educational leaders’ role in educating Black students and themselves with professional development, provided a better understanding and recognition of the struggles in the North (particularly in urban and metropolitan areas), expanded our thinking about school desegregation and community control, and broadened our understanding of Black experiences and activism in higher education and private schools. Our volume will highlight and expand upon the changes to the field over the last three and a half decades. In the shadow of 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, contributors expand on the way African Americans viewed and experienced a variety of educational policies including segregation and desegregation, and the varied options they chose beyond desegregation. The volume covers both the North and South in the 19th and 20th centuries. Contributors explore how educators, administrators, students, and communities responded to educational policies in various settings including K-12 public and private schooling and higher education. A significant contribution of the book is showcasing the growing and concentrated work in the era immediately following the Brown decision. Finally, scholars consider the historian’s engagement with recent history, contemporary issues, future directions, methodology, and teaching.

James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order--supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials--conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and their descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires.

Traditional narratives of black educational history suggest that African Americans offered a unified voice concerning Brown v. Board of Education. Jack Dougherty counters this interpretation, demonstrating that black activists engaged in multiple, overlapping, and often conflicting strategies to advance the race by gaining greater control over schools. Dougherty tells the story of black school reform movements in Milwaukee from the 1930s to the 1990s, highlighting the multiple perspectives within each generation. In profiles of four leading activists, he reveals how different generations redefined the meaning of the Brown decision over time to fit the historical conditions of their particular struggles. William Kelley of the Urban League worked to win teaching jobs for blacks and to resettle Southern black migrant children in the 1950s; Lloyd Barbee of the NAACP organized protests in support of integrated schools and the teaching of black history in the 1960s; and Marian McEvilly and Howard Fuller contested--in different ways--the politics of implementing desegregation in the 1970s, paving the way for the 1990s private school voucher movement. Dougherty concludes by contrasting three interpretations of the progress made in the fifty years since Brown, showing how historical perspective can shed light on contemporary debates over race and education reform.

Hundreds of thousands of African Canadian children demand and deserve quality education that promotes success both within and outside of school. Recognizing that the education these young people receive will shape their lives as citizens, the contributors to this volume provide an important, timely analysis of the educational experiences of African Canadian children and youth. With contributions from leading and emerging scholars, The Education of African Canadian Children critically responds to and comments on the historical, cultural, institutional, and informational contexts and problems of the learning lives of these children. The authors offer a comprehensive history of African Canadians’ encounters with the education system, the current challenges they are facing, and opportunities for more inclusive and democratic educational practices that will better serve this population. Advocating for cultural redemption and learning success for a population that is not being served well by Canadian public education systems, this book will benefit teachers, students, government program managers, policy makers, and educational researchers. The first multi-authored work of its kind, The Education of African Canadian Children opens new debates and possibilities for change for those concerned with education in their communities and their country.

The African American heritage is interwoven throughout the history of the United States, but few educators are prepared to teach children about the events that shaped the African American experience. Most of the stories about slavery, the days when it was illegal to teach black children to read, and when blacks were not allowed to vote or own land, are part of the remembered oral history of black families. Morgan retells American history from the point of view of the events that effected blacks—the Great Depression, the WPA, and the federal policies that led to current Head Start programs, school integration in the 1950s and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the War on Poverty, and the IQ controversy. He shows how Aesop and the teachings of Socrates and Aristotle established the philosophical traditions perpetuated by the great black educators, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, with the purpose of providing black children with a better understanding of their heritage, their importance in American history, and their place in the world.

Reckoning with History brings together original essays from a diverse group of historians who consider how writing about the past can engage with the urgent issues of the present. The contributors—all former students of the distinguished Columbia University historian Eric Foner—explore the uses and politics of history through key episodes across a wide range of struggles for freedom. They shed new light on how different groups have defined and fought for freedom throughout American history, as well as the ways in which the ideal of freedom remains unrealized today. Covering a broad range of topics, these essays offer insight into how historians practice their craft in different ways and illuminate what it means to be a socially and politically engaged historian.

The United States’ social and economic inequities stood in high relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, spotlighting the glaringly disproportionate systemic injustices related to public health and the economic impact on minoritized communities. Realities of structural and institutionalized racism and classism were exposed to greater degrees as we sought to understand and investigate the inequitable impact regarding health and income disparities for African American, Latinx, and Native American communities, as well as racial violence explicitly targeting Asian American communities. Further exacerbating the polarized sociopolitical landscape amidst the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, witnessed by countless people around the world, resulted in anguish and drew heightened attention to the insidious racial injustice and ongoing racial violence that continues to plague the nation. As many advocates took to the streets in an attempt to have their voices heard in the continued struggle for racial equality, the federal government tried to further silence those who have been historically placed on the margins, including the attack of critical race theory, antiracism work in education, and training for diversity and inclusion. Consequently, it is imperative social science educators are equipped with the knowledge, tools, and dispositions to facilitate learning that explores the implications of power, privilege, and oppression and ask important questions to ensure voices that have been muffled, or silenced altogether, are strategically unsilenced, voiced, and valued. Given the perpetuation of inequities, existing educational disparities, and the continued need for reconciliation, this volume explores how the social sciences can be examined and reimagined to combat injustices and support further diversity, equity, and inclusion. Authors explore how educators can (a) understand how knowledge is constructed, shaped, and influences how students see the world, (b) problematize current curricular approaches and reframe instructional practices, (c) employ a critical lens to attend to and proactively address existing challenges and inequities related to race, (d) infuse their teaching with greater attention to diversity and inclusion for all students; and (e) promote increased awareness, advocacy, and educational justice. Through the examination of research, theory, and practitioner-oriented strategies, the authors encourage reflection, inspire calls for action, and explore how to teach about, proactively challenge, and encourage continued examination of society to support progress through increased critical consciousness, cultural competence, and critical multiculturalism.