Thinking About Black Education

“I will begin by commending Kelly and Roberson for their exceptional work in selecting and intertwining the chapters to narrate a compelling story of Black education. As an introduction to their methodology, Kelly and Roberson assert that “given the vast literature available, we contend that no one can fully understand and appreciate Black educational experiences in the United States without starting with the scholarship presented here” (p. 1). The literature they have contributed undoubtedly enhances comprehension of the intricacies, historical background, and, to a large extent, the trajectory of Black education. Kelly and Roberson further assert that “all scholars in this volume have been engaged in what we call post-Brown revisionist thinking, research, and writing against a shadowy, distorted, and dismal picture of Black education” (p. 5). This fittingly describes the platform that Kelly and Roberson have established for scholars in this volume to articulate essential insights.” (Read the full review at Teachers College Record.)

Review in May 2024 "Teachers College Record" by Antione D. Tomlin, PhD, PCC, Tenured Associate Professor and Director of the Academic Literacies Tutoring Center at Anne Arundel Community College

“Now this is the book we’ve been waiting for in educational studies. An ingenious one-stop academic commentary featuring many of the most treasured treatises on historical and contemporary Black education. A must-read!”

Tondra L. Loder-Jackson, Professor, Educational Foundations, African American Studies, and History, University of Alabama at Birmingham

“Every so often we need a reminder of the history and hope in Black education. Hilton Kelly and Heather Moore Roberson have put forth a collection that forces us to look back and remember while we question forward and imagine. This volume brings together some of the most brilliant scholars in Black education. Let us listen and learn.”

Donyell L. Roseboro, Professor and Chief Diversity Officer, University of North Carolina Wilmington

“Black education has been an enduring struggle for freedom, access, equity, and excellence in a world that has largely been systematically and sentimentally anti-black. This wonderfully curated collection reflects how Black scholars have engaged this struggle, transformed the discourse, and emerged as the field of Black educational studies.”

Denise Taliaferro Baszile, Professor and Associate Dean, Miami University of Ohio

Dedication

Preface

Part I

Introduction: Out From the Gloomy Past

Selection 1: In Secret Places: Acquiring Literacy in Slave Communities – Heather Andrea Williams

Selection 2: Ex-Slaves and the Rise of Universal Education in the South, 1860–1880 – James D. Anderson

Selection 3: Spreading the Word: The Cultural Work of the Black Press – Elizabeth McHenry

Selection 4: The Spread of Northern School Segregation, 1890–1940 – D. M. Douglas

Selection 5: Organized Resistance and Black Educators’ Quest for School Equality, 1878–1938 – Vanessa Siddle Walker

Selection 6: Patterns of Black Excellence – Thomas Sowell

Selection 7: The Price of Desegregation – Trudier Harris

Part II

Introduction: A (Black) Nation at Risk?

Selection 8: Black Students’ School Success: Coping With the Burden of “Acting White” – Signithia Fordham and John U. Ogbu

Selection 9: Reexamining Resistance as Oppositional Behavior: The Nation of Islam and the Creation of a Black Achievement Ideology – A. A. Akom

Selection 10: The Canary in the Mine: The Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students – Mano Singham

Selection 11: Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy – Gloria Ladson-Billings

Selection 12: Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom – bell hooks

Selection 13: Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education – Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate IV

Selection 14: Early Schooling and Academic Achievement of African American Males – James Earl Davis

Selection 15: “Those Loud Black Girls”: (Black) Women, Silence, and Gender “Passing” in the Academy – Signithia Fordham

Selection 16: Framing and Reviewing Hip-Hop Educational Research – Emery Petchauer

Selection 17: “Be Real Black for Me”: Imagining BlackCrit in Education – Michael J. Dumas and kihana miraya ross

Index

Hilton Kelly

In 2022, Hilton Kelly became the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. For most of his career, Kelly has been a Professor of Educational Studies and Africana Studies, and Chair of the Educational Studies Department at Davidson College. He received his B.A. in history from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and both his M.S. in labor studies and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research and teaching interests include sociology of education, critical race theory, the Age of Jim Crow, the lives, work, and careers of African-American educators, and social memory studies. In 2010, he published Race, Remembering, and Jim Crow’s Teachers in the Routledge Studies in African-American History and Culture Series. His articles have appeared in Urban Education, Educational Studies, The Urban Review, The Journal of Negro Education, The American Sociologist, and Vitae Scholasticae: The Journal of Educational Biography. In 2018, he served as the President of the American Educational Studies Association.

Heather Moore Roberson

Heather Moore Roberson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Community & Justice Studies and Black Studies at Allegheny College. She received her B.A. in Educational Studies and American Studies from Trinity College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue University. Moore Roberson conducts research in the fields of critical race theory, boyhood studies, and justice learning. She has published several book chapters and select articles in various interdisciplinary journals like Radical Teacher and Professing Education.