the purpose of public education was to ensure the formal training of citizens to be literate, permitting their social and civic engagement, it has structurally defined and maintained racial inequality. This is not accidental or simply a result of historical or contemporary class dynamics. The educational inequality and achievement gaps we are familiar with today were produced. In the section that follows, we examine access to and the quality of education for Blacks and Whites in America as an instance of institutionalized racism.
Racism in an Institution: Education, Jim Crow and the Racial State
Education is both a predictable measure for analyzing Black progress, and a yardstick of Black failure. It is rife with contradictions – pervasive and savage inequalities that are at odds with the US national meritocratic ethos (Kozol 2012). Yet the maintenance of racial inequality in education today does not require bad actors. The structural inequality of poor learning outcomes from impoverished schools, unequal access to advanced placement courses and racially biased selection for gifted and talented programs can be maintained despite well-meaning people, good intentions and even policy changes. While obtaining an education has been a core means of Black resistance, it has also been a venue where the need for resistance is most obvious. To understand why, we have to begin at the beginning and incorporate a historical view to analyze the generational impact on the Black community of withholding access to a quality education.
Education Denied During Slavery
Withholding access to education was seen in its most extreme form in the South before emancipation, when Blacks were prohibited by law from learning to read and write (Hallihan 2001:50). This legal prohibition was universal, with few exceptions; in some states, free Blacks also had to adhere to this mandate (Lieberson 1980:137),6 and in others their education was permitted and they established their own schools or conducted them secretly (Du Bois 1901:21). Despite these restrictions, a large number of adult free Blacks, according to the 1850 census, were literate, and many Black abolitionists were self-taught (e.g., Frederick Douglass). However, given that the vast majority of slaves were illiterate, sociologist Stanley Lieberson posits that, after emancipation, “at least 93 percent of all adult Blacks were illiterate at the time of the Civil War” (1980:138).
Sociologist Pamela B. Walters (2001:41) contends that this policy of prohibiting the education of Blacks (as well as poor Whites) served the interest of the plantation elites. Since the South was an agriculture-based economy dependent on unskilled labor, educating Blacks and poor Whites was unnecessary. However, this was not the sole reason that education was withheld. According to Walters (2001:46), “they [Southern plantation elites] thought that providing ‘too much’ education for either African Americans or poor Whites might empower these subordinated groups to challenge the planter’s political hegemony.” Education was recognized as a tool of empowerment for the oppressed slaves (and poor Whites) and, in order to maintain their oppression, access to education was withheld.
Education and the Freedmen’s Quest for Advancement During Reconstruction
When slavery was abolished, young freedmen and women (emancipated slaves) sought entry into schools. Blacks in the Reconstruction era recognized the importance of an education, and saw it as “one of the few institutions that could lift them from poverty and oppression” (Mickelson 1990:44). Schools were established to serve freed slaves during the Civil War by Union troops occupying Southern territory, and after the war they were established by the Reconstruction government (Walters 2001:40). As schools were established and became increasingly available, their enrollment grew. By 1870, historian John Hope Franklin notes, “there were 247,000 students in more than 4,000 schools” (1956:304–5). Sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois argues that Blacks were not apathetic toward education and pursued it vigorously, “with enrollments reaching 572,000 in 1877; 785,000 in 1880; and slightly more than a million by 1884” (1901:43).
But abolition did not abolish the racial frame that fostered and perpetuated slavery, which held that Blacks were inferior to Whites and less than human. Historian Henry Allen Bullock, in his book A History of Negro Education in the South, documents the substantial opposition from Whites against the education of Blacks in the South. Even though a population that was forced to be illiterate by law was now technically able to access education, Bullock writes, “economic pressures were applied against Blacks; Whites opposed mixed schools; and some Whites resented payment of taxes for the education of Blacks” (1967:41–3). Despite this, during the Reconstruction era (1866–77), both groups experienced a period of near-equality (Walters 2001). Navigating the choppy waters of opposition successfully, Bullock (1967) argues, was only possible due to pressure from the federal government and the political power of Blacks demonstrated by their voting strength. Walters notes, “Whites, in general, and White elites in particular, found the equal or relatively equal provision of educational opportunities to White and Black children objectionable” (2001:41).
Yet there was virtually no discrimination in educational funding for Black and White children, during this period (Walters 2001:41). Attempts to distribute taxes by the race of taxpayers (which would have significantly reduced funding for Blacks) were defeated consistently when up for a vote (Newbold 1928:211). Black political strength and representation on local school boards at that time were key to securing this equality in funding. Bullock offers an example drawn from the state of North Carolina in 1873. Blacks comprised 38 percent of public school enrollment, and a near-equivalent amount (33 percent) of state support went to Black schools. Beyond this significant achievement, Lieberson notes, “School terms were the same length and teachers received about the same salary … for every dollar spent on Black children for teachers’ salaries, most commonly from about $1.10 to $1.20 was spent on the teachers of White children” (Lieberson 1980:138).
During Reconstruction, across Southern states, school expenditures for Black and White students were similar, as was the average school term. The Reconstruction era, however, was short lived, and with the end of federal political control and oversight in the South, schools returned to state control. White elites regained political power and desired to institute their political preferences, one of which was to create inequality in educational spending for Black and White students. In order to do this, however, they had to remove Blacks as a political force, hence the rise of disenfranchisement, which stripped Black people of their right to vote (Walters 2001:41).
Disenfranchisement, a Response to Population and Structural Change
During the Reconstruction era, when both Blacks and Whites possessed a degree of political power, no one group was able to elevate their racial groups’ interest over the other, enabling a period of near-equality in educational funding. Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva defines power within a racialized social system as a “racial group’s capacity to push for its racial interest in relation to other races” (Bonilla-Silva 1996:470). Thus, Blacks’ possession of political power was problematic for the White planter class because they were prevented from unilaterally asserting their interests. Disenfranchisement was a means to an end – it enabled the White planter class to “regain unchallenged political power and subsequently use it to regain their advantage in public educational opportunities” (Walters 2001:41).
The population and structural change thesis developed by sociologist Hayward Derrick Horton holds that “changes in the relative sizes of the minority and majority populations interact with changes in the social structure to exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality” (1998:9). Racism, Horton argues, is a multi-dimensional system that reacts to population and structural change (1998:11); it is the means through which majority populations respond to changes in the minority population. Majority and minority here do not refer to the absolute population size but to the relative power associated with each group – dominant and subordinate status, respectively. In this historical instance,
