According to a report published by a University of Chicago political science professor, the Reagan Administration attempted to dismantle the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Dr. Gary Orfield argues that during the Reagan presidency, OCR removed the threat of any enforcement of civil rights in higher education. (AF)

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASAALH) was founded 90 years ago on Sept. 9, 1915. It's founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, author of the scathing masterpiece, The Miseducation of the Negro (1933), was also the thunder of Negro History Week (1926), the forerunner to contemporary Black History Month celebrations.…

From her late teenage years as a civil rights activist to an interim presidency at Howard University, Dr. Joyce A. Ladner has lived as heroic and accomplished a life as any scholar of her generation. A 1964 graduate of Tougaloo College, Ladner, in her college days, with her sister, Dorie Ladner, and other students from the Student Nonviolent…

Describes efforts by Alice Gresham Bullock, dean of the Howard University School of Law, to improve the school (including building a new library and improving relations with faculty) and restore Howard to its previous stature as a leader in civil rights law. (EV)

This article discuss the potential impact of Black Greek-Lettered Organizations (BGLOs) in advancing African American civil and political rights. During the antebellum years and Jim Crow era, barriers to Black voting included enslavement, anti-literacy laws, violence and intimidation, grandfather clauses, gerrymandering, literacy requirements,…

This article describes the accomplishments of Derrick P. Alridge, Professor, Social Foundations of Education, University of Georgia-Athens. His research centers on the history and the study of the social and educational ideas of African American intellectuals, educators and social activists such as Du Bois, Woodson, Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie…

While history for most conjures up images of places and experiences far removed, for Dr. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, the field provides a "wonderful medium" to illuminate contemporary issues as well. Much of Ogbar's current research centers on events occurring in the latter half of the 20th century, such as the civil rights and Black power…

W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, was unwavering in his commitment to the equality of the colored peoples of the world. All intellectual giant and a life-long agitator, Du Bois devoted his life to ensuring that the majority of the people in the world, "those of color," would break the shackles of colonialism and…

This article describes the accomplishments of Lani Guinier, Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard University law school. The first and only African American woman to hold a tenured faculty position at the Harvard University law school, Guinier has put her visibility to use by speaking out on issues of race, gender and democratic…

The simple mention of reparations for African-Americans in the United States can be counted on to generate a firestorm. When it comes to the issue of recompense for injustices Black Americans have suffered throughout U.S. history--slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and other political and social mechanisms designed to maintain racial inequality--the…

Few historic episodes in American history have imparted a more potent plea for social justice and inclusion than the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In the past two decades, legendary activist Bob Moses has channeled the best of the civil rights tradition into a campaign of school reform and curriculum development with the nationally…

This document is an analysis of the authors' experience of her private tour of the Dexter Parsonage Museum, the former residence of Dr. Martin Luther King, in Montgomery, Alabama. The author then goes on to discuss civil rights and importance of the continued need for Black History Month.

The story of Brown is compelling. Blacks and Whites alike understood that the Jim Crow system of "separate but equal" was a convenient fiction. There was no actual effort to ensure that Whites and Blacks were provided the same services. Invariably, the White schools had higher funding, better buildings, newer supplies and so on. Indeed,…

Today's climate of supercharged patriotism and apparent intolerance for comment or critique calls to mind an earlier period of U.S. history. The Cold War that began in the mid-to late-1940s, along with McCarthyism and the anti-communist movement in the early 1950s, created an atmosphere of national hysteria and paranoia. For the past decade,…

While Texas officials scramble to adopt race-neutral admissions and financial aid policies in the public higher education systems, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights has opened an inquiry into system compliance with civil rights legislation. Texas is the only state that prohibits affirmative action in higher education…