A History of Minority Education - Stevetj1's Blog



A History of Minority Education in America

There have been several events in history that have defined and redefined education in America. As individuals moved from Europe to the states they brought with them certain ideas of what they thought was important for the success of society. Reading, writing, religion, and economics were all of great importance to many people. Therefore, education took on the role of preparing students in those categories for life as adults. Throughout this paper I would like to discuss the progression, or lack of in some cases, of minority education in the United States, and events that defined minority groups in America such as slavery and education, Plessy v Ferguson, Brown v the Board of Education, and Civil Rights movements.

Around the year 1619 a group of Africans were taken to Virginia by a Dutch ship. These Africans became indentured servants for a certain period of time, and then were released to live in society. As more and more Africans were brought into American colonies, the length of time these individuals were required to serve got longer and longer, until eventually they were required to be slaves for life. For over 240 years slaves survived in America. For the same amount of time, slaves were given very little opportunity to be educated. In an article called The Slave Experience: Education, Arts and Culture, educational opportunities for slaves were discussed. “Concerned that literate slaves would forge passes or convince other slaves to revolt, Southern slaveholders generally opposed slave literacy.” (Sambol-Tosco, 2004) Slaveholders were interested in keeping what they had, and education for slaves created possibility of losing their possessions. On a similar viewpoint, William Harper, a pro-slavery lawyer from South Carolina said this about extending education for humans; “The creator did not intend that every individual human being should be highly cultivated….It is better that a part should be fully and highly cultivated and the rest utterly ignorant.” (Urban, Wagoner Jr., 2004) Again we see efforts to keep man, Africans included, away from education.

Although many people disagreed with the education of slaves, some chose to allow it. Again in The Slave Experience: Education, Arts and Culture, Sambol-Tosco discusses the allowance of some slaves to receive education. “Still, there was some tolerance for slave education among certain groups in the South. In 1743, for instance, Anglican ministers established a school for slaves in South Carolina. For over twenty years the school offered instruction in Christian religion and education under the guidance of a slave schoolmaster.” (Sambol-Tasco, 2004) At these early stages in America we saw minorities receiving very little education, lucky to be given the education to read and write.

From the time Africans came to America in the early 1600’s to end of the Civil War, Africans were living as slaves in America. Throughout that time period in history, and for some time after, Africans had little to no opportunity to receive education. 280 years after the first Africans came to America, and a little over 30 years after the Civil War and the end of slavery, a court case that would hold minorities in an inferior position in America came about. This was the Plessy V Ferguson court case of 1896. On June 2, 1872, a man named Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the “white” car on the Louisiana railroad. Homer took the case to court and argued that it violated the 13th and 14th Amendments. Plessy was found guilty at the state level, appealed to the Supreme Court, and was again found guilty. (Cozzens, 1999)

This court case had a tremendous impact on the lives and education of minorities for the next six decades to come. This case essentially gave human beings reason to believe that “separate but equal” was constitutionally correct. Not only was “separate but equal” ok in many minds, but it also gave whites reason to believe that they were the superior race. Separate education buildings for minority students were supposed to be equal to that of the white students, but as time went on, minority students were realizing that this just was not the case. Poor facilities and supplies produced poor opportunity for education in many cases, thus leaving minority students with less of an education than many of the white Americans around them.

The end of the Civil War and slavery seemed to be a turning point in the eyes of many, but after the Plessy V Ferguson court decision, there continued to be more to worry about for minorities in America. Almost sixty years following the Plessy V Ferguson case, a new court case would arise that would give minority groups another glimmer of hope. This was the Brown V the Board of Education case of 1955. In Topeka Kansas, in 1951, a black third-grader was being forced to walk 1 mile to her all-black school even though there was a white school much closer to her. Her father decided to take this problem to court to argue that his daughter should be allowed to enroll at the white school, and that the decisions made in the Plessy V Ferguson case were incorrect. About three years later, and after much preparation and effort, on May 17, 1954 Chief Justice Earl Warren read this decision of the unanimous Supreme Court;

“"We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does...We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. (Cozzens, 1998)

The Brown V Board of Education decision was one of the most influential events in the history of minority groups in America. This essentially took away from many, the beliefs that the Plessy V Ferguson case instilled in them, a belief that it was ok to segregate because of ethnicity, and that minority groups were inferior. The Supreme Court did not give a timeframe for the required desegregation of schools across the country, therefore, it took, or is still taking, a long period of time for things to completely change. As a matter of fact, William F. Tate, Ph.D., chair and professor in the Department of Education in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, states that “during the initial desegregation efforts in many schools, white students and staff treated black students harshly and physical danger was very real. Over time, Tate says, African-American students have been organized into separate academic tracks and scheduling patterns.” (Neil Schoenherr, 2005) Although Brown V Board of Education was a great positive change in America, the fight for racial equality in life and education was not over.

In the years following the Brown case, rights movements were taking place. African Americans, Mexican Americans, and American Indians, among others, were taking action in a fight to finalize equal rights across the board. In American Education by Wayne J. Urban, a discussion about these civil rights movements takes place. It says,

“The 1954 Brown decision helped motivate African Americans to launch a series of civil rights campaigns on their own behalf. The boycott of the segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955; the series of sit-ins by black college students begun in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960; the march on Washinton, D.C. led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., in 1963; and the ongoing series of voter-registration campaigns were some of the more visible examples of political activism that first swept through the south and finally the entire nation. The impact of the Civil Rights movement in educational affairs came mainly through a series of legislative acts passed in response to pressure from blacks and other minority groups or from court decisions rendered in response to suits filed by various minorities. (Urban, Wagoner Jr., 2004)

Without these Civil Rights movements that took place after the Brown case, minority groups may not have gotten the results they were hoping for. People from all different races were coming together to take control of the situation and fight for their rights. As a result, minority education was greatly improved. As William Tate mentioned, there is still work to be done, as there is ill-treatment of minority groups still in schools and society, but we have taken giant leaps in the right direction from the days of slaves and “separate but equal”.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Affiliate Faculty in American Indian Studies, Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, gave a lecture about minority students and their successes and failures in schooling today, to Marysville school district staff members. She mentioned that minority students need role models. They need people to believe in them, so they can believe in their own abilities and opportunities in life. She believes Native Americans and other minority students are often overlooked, or looked at as inferior students, and even inferiour human beings. In that regard, not much has changed since the days of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. the Board of Education. Students may not be separate, but there also still seems to be inequalities. (Fryberg, 2008)

I could not agree more with Dr. Fryberg. I believe life is more about our reactions to events, and less about the events themselves. Our mental makeup throughout life plays an enormous role in our successes and failures. As I believe this to be true, I see connections between the way minority students are treated, their mental makeup and amount of confidence, and the number of minority students who struggle in school. If a child at the age of four or five starts receiving negative messages on television and from people that he or she encounters, and continue to receive those messages throughout life, they are likely to hold a negative self image, and have a difficult time finding success.

I believe Dr. Fryberg is exactly the type of role model she says minority students need. Coming from a Native American background, and having had the amount of success she has at Stanford, receiving her doctorate and now teaching students at Arizona, I can only imagine how many lives she has changed. Students, minority or not, must be encountering her contagious confidence and take confidence of their own with them.

We, as a society, need to focus our attention on building confidence in minority students. We must praise those students who are successful in school and after school. We must make their successes public, for all people to see, and change this terrible perception that white people are superior students and minority students are inferior. If students are confident in their abilities they are more likely to attend school. When students attend school regularly it is obvious that they will be more likely to succeed, thus providing more and more examples of success stories with minority students.

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