Chapter Overview

Chapter 6 examines the relationships between political economy, ideology, and schooling in the experience of African Americans following the Civil War. Selected political economic developments of the period included: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which granted civil and political rights to ex-slaves and other African Americans; the period of Reconstruction, in which African Americans achieved significant political power in the South and during which a number of higher education institutions were established for African Americans; and the subsequent period of "redemption," in which the oppression of African Americans by southern whites through Jim Crow laws and state constitutional revisions reached tragic proportions. Ideologically, racist European Americans believed they were justified in their oppression of African Americans on the basis of a "scientific" view that European Americans were biologically more evolved than African Americans and that classical liberal commitments to freedom and equality did not, therefore, apply to these "less evolved" human beings.

In terms of schooling, it is noteworthy that African Americans themselves were remarkably successful during the Reconstruction period in establishing schools for black children throughout the South. In general, southern whites had less access to quality education than southern blacks. The redemption period, however, and particularly the period marked by the ascendancy of Booker T. Washington to political and educational power, resulted in significantly reduced opportunities for the education of African American youth. While he is often regarded as a hero of African American advancement, this chapter shows that Booker T. Washington's commitment to vocational education and acceptance of disfranchisement and lack of civil rights for African Americans was opposed by some black leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois. The contrasts between the social, political, and educational analyses of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois are drawn in some detail and underscored in the Primary Source Readings by Washington and Du Bois.