Black students were not allowed to enroll in Missouri public schools until 1866. During the fugitive school era (prior to 1863), keeping Black children and youth safe from white terrorists committed not only to disrupting nascent learning but burying Black bodies became priority one for clandestine school leaders (Williamson 2005). Later, when…

In the early twentieth century St. Louis' public schools for Black children enjoyed a robust reputation, perhaps second only to those in the nation's capital. Herman H. Dreer, a "public school man," provided direction for those institutions similarly called to lead various segments and forces within the larger Black community…

Ruth Harris, the first African American female president of the segregated teachers' college, Stowe, implemented the preservice teachers' volunteer program throughout her tenure from 1940 to 1954. The idea was likely the outgrowth from her dissertation study completed at the time of her appointment that supported teachers knowing the neighborhoods…

When examining the efforts of African Americans to create and operate viable primary and secondary schools from 1865 to 1870 in Kentucky, it is difficult to not contemplate what potentially might have been had national support for the Black transition from enslavement to freedom not waned. W.E.B. Dubois and several subsequent historians concluded…

The discriminatory practices against African Americans during the Jim Crow era in St. Louis, Missouri did not deter Dr. Ruth Harris, the first African American female president of Stowe Teachers College (STC) in St. Louis, from accepting the challenge of leading the African American teachers' college from 1940 to 1954. Her appointment to President…

This chapter is a detailed investigation of education for Native Hawaiians during the 19th century. However, adhering to Ronald Takaki's assertion (2000) that it is important to demonstrate that America's racial policies involved common practices across culturally diverse groups, this paper incorporates prior studies on the education of African…

At a time when most other institutions of higher education in the country excluded ex-slaves from admission, the University of Kansas conferred degrees upon sixty African Americans by 1910. However, while the university did allow ex-slaves to matriculate, these students still experienced a degree of exclusion and encountered barriers of racial…

After the Civil War, schooling for African Americans was irregular and consisted mainly of elementary grades. Education was provided, primarily, by elite, private institutions and fewer than three percent of students aged 13-17 attended regularly. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in "Plessey v. Ferguson." Although…

During the early 1920s, the question of who should control the schooling of African American children caused controversy in several Southern states, including Georgia. White educationists and bureaucrats were divided into two groups: the conservatives who called for educational needs to be determined and funded locally, and a growing reformist…

This brief paper captures only a glimpse of the faceted experiences of Alabama State College Laboratory School's students, teachers, and administrators during a period of dramatic societal changes. It is a response to the call for more scholarship in the history of Black education during this period and for case studies of schools that…

This paper presents an early phase of a research on the history of Alabama State College Laboratory School, 1920 to 1969. The research contributes new, critical history to the current story of segregated schooling and offers a more complete picture as to the richness that the African American culture, community, and dedication to educational…

Despite the importance of educational journals to teachers and other educational professionals, little attention has been given to educational communication or journalism, particularly those published by a minority teachers' state or local association. This study examines the "Texas Standard," which, beginning in 1926, provided…

The purpose of this article has been to set the record straight as to the extent to which education of the mind and hands was prevalent in the United States prior to the 1880s. This effort is necessary since the proponents of the manual training curriculum that surfaced in the United States in the 1880s created a misperception that no prior form…

John D. Rockefeller and a group of friends and advisors established the General Education Board a century ago. They established the Board, among other endeavors, with the intention that it improve the education of African Americans in the American South. Over its sixty-two year history, the Board far outdistanced the other "Northern"…

"Race, ethnicity, and poverty are poor excuses for low expectations" (Monroe 1997, 111). Negro educators who forged an academic haven for secondary students in the early twentieth century held as strongly to this belief as did Monroe, an urban Black educator, a century and a half later. Whereas the American high school movement gained…