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African American Teachers in the South, 1890–1940: Powerlessness and the Ironies of Expectations and Protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Michael Fultz
Michael Fultz*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Extract

In an earlier study, an examination of the educational content of the African American monthly press between 1900 and 1930, I was surprised to find meager commentary on issues related to black teachers or on the conditions and practice of teaching in African American schools. For example, the periodicals contained only two full-length articles, both published before 1908, on the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools (NATCS), the most prestigious African American educational organization of the period and aspirant to the title of black NEA. Likewise, the journals virtually ignored the social roles of teachers, rarely highlighting them as role models or lauding their community contributions. Why these omissions occurred is a matter of conjecture, though I speculated in the earlier work that the reasons were associated with the journals' middle-class orientation, which celebrated higher educational achievements by the race more than dwelling upon the deplorable conditions enveloping black common schooling during this troubled time. Given this framework, issues concerning African American teachers were neglected to the extent that a variety of concerns involving black common schooling were glossed over as well.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 401 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 See Fultz, Michael, “‘Agitate then Brother’: Education in the Black Monthly Periodical Press, 1900–1930” (Ed.D. diss., Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1987) for a complete discussion of the periodicals, their educational content, and their middle-class orientation.Google Scholar

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17 Fields, , Lemon Swamp and Other Places, 209, 126.Google Scholar

18 See Perry, Thelma D., History of the American Teachers Association (Washington, D.C., 1975), 133–62; Smith, Susan Lynn, “‘Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired’: Black Women and the National Negro Health Movement, 1915–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1991).Google Scholar

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32 McCuistion, Fred makes this point in “The South's Negro Teaching Force,” Journal of Negro Education 1 (Apr. 1932): 18; Miller, Carroll and Gregg, Howard D., “The Teaching Staff,” Journal of Negro Education 1 (July 1932): 208.Google Scholar

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35 Robinson, W. A., “Taking Thought for Tomorrow,” The Bulletin 8 (Oct. 1927): 6–7.Google Scholar

36 Thompson, Charles, “Negro Teachers and the Elimination of Segregated Schools,” Journal of Negro Education 20 (Spring 1951): 138.Google Scholar

37 See, for example, Hansot, Elisabeth and Tyack, David, “A Usable Past: Using History in Educational Policy,” in Policy Making in Education, ed. Lieberman, Ann and McLaughlin, Milbrey W. (Chicago, 1982), 1–22.Google Scholar