"Roberts v. City of Boston" is a well-known legal case in the history of US education. In 1847, the Boston School Committee denied Sarah C. Roberts, a five-year-old African American girl, admission to the public primary school closest to her home. She was instead ordered to attend the all-black Abiel Smith School, about a half-mile walk…

This article examines the impact of African American migration into Kansas City, Missouri, on the city's segregated school system in the 1940s and early 1950s. Substantial increases in the number of African American elementary school-age children produced chronic overcrowding in the segregated black schools, which was not easily relieved due to…

This essay examines the first detailed study of gifted African American youth: Lillian Steele Proctor's master's thesis from the late 1920s on Black children in Washington, DC. Unlike formative research on gifted children by educational psychologists, Proctor's investigation emphasized children's experiences at school, home, and community in…

To introduce their examination of the social production of segregated space and power relations in Oxnard, California from 1934 to 1954, the authors utilize portions of a letter written by Alice Shaffer, April 21, 1938, to the Oxnard School Board of Trustees. Shaffer outlines the seemingly shared concerns of her neighbors about a disruption of the…

Studies on northern desegregation have focused on political strategies, the role of the courts, the responsibility of the federal government (HEW), and barriers to northern desegregation. Some have conducted individual case studies and comparative studies, and others have examined a number of cities. This article examines the way school…