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Education in the Segregated South: A Determined African American Culture

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “The long struggle over the development of education in the postbellum South occurred in large part because no dominant class could convince the freed people that its conception of education reflected a natural and proper social order,” Anderson wrote in “The Education of Blacks in the South,” James Anderson is the author of The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935.

Published

7 years ago

September 2, 2019

Oakland Post

Washington DC, USA, 1951. Student traffic controllers are waiting to be deployment at an intersection in Washinton DC. (Photo iStockphoto / NNPA)

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

During segregation, Black schools in the South focused on building an environment of success for community children.

Educator, activist and youth worker Derrick R. Brooms said black schools served multiple purposes – particularly during the Jim Crow era.

“There are ways in which some Black schools during that era served as both fugitive and liberation spaces and opportunities,” Brooms wrote on Twitter.

“It was in these spaces that many black communities saw, supported, and invested in multiple possibilities,” Brooms said.

The conversation started on social media last month when Imani Perry, a Hughes Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, urged her more than 60,000 Twitter followers to not believe the myth that the schools were terrible pre-desegregation.

“There’s an extraordinary body of black education history that tells otherwise,” Perry said. As examples, Perry provided James Anderson, Vanessa Siddle Walker, Michael Fultz, Heater Williams and Valinda Littlefield.

Anderson is the author of, “The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935” which received the Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association.

He is also co-editor of New Perspectives on Black Educational History and has published numerous articles and book chapters on the history of education.

“The long struggle over the development of education in the postbellum South occurred in large part because no dominant class could convince the freed people that its conception of education reflected a natural and proper social order,” Anderson wrote in “The Education of Blacks in the South.”

“There was nothing inevitable about the former slaves’ ability to resist these competing ideologies of education and society and pursue their own course. They had spent much time preparing themselves for the moment when they could act in ways more consonant with beliefs sacred to them that could not be expressed before emancipation. Blacks soon made it apparent that they were committed to training their young for futures that prefigured full equality and autonomy,” Anderson said.

Walker is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Educational Studies.

For 25 years, she has explored the segregated schooling of African American children.

Walker considered the climate that permeated segregated schools, the network of professional collaborations that explains the similarity across schools, and the hidden systems of advocacy that demanded equality and justice for the children in the schools.

“Although Black schools were indeed commonly lacking in facilities and funding, some evidence suggests that the environment of the segregated school had affective traits, institutional policies, and community support that helped Black children learn in spite of the neglect their schools received from white school boards,” Walker wrote in her 1996 book, “Their Highest Potential.”

“Most notably, in one of the earliest accountings by Thomas Sowell, the schools are remembered as having atmospheres where support, encouragement, and rigid standards, combined to enhance students’ self-worth and increase their aspirations to achieve,” Walker said.

Fultz is an emeritus professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies. He received his Ed.M. and Ed.D. at Harvard Graduate School of Education and taught there in the Administration, Planning and Social Policy program for three years before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990.

His teaching and research interests focus on the history of American Education, the history of African American education, and Urban Education.

“From the 1880s through the 1920s, the adage, ‘As is the teacher, so is the school,’ was commonplace in the rhetorical repertoire of African American educators in the South,” Fultz wrote in a 2008 article titled, “As is the Teacher, So is the School: Future Directions in the Historiography of African American Teachers.”

“The essence of its meaning lingered throughout de jure segregation. Its expression encompassed vital themes related to the need and demand for a ‘sound professionalism’ among the expanding number of African American teachers in the region,” he wrote.

“Its significance flowed from a self-evident logic, implicitly understood and fundamentally contested, by both black and white southerners: the ‘fate of the race’ depended on its schools; the quality of those schools depended on the quality of the teachers they had; and the quality of the teachers depended upon their character, dedication, and professional training,” Fultz wrote.

“Ambrose Caliver, the first African American research specialist, hired by the U.S. Office of Education, reduced the issues to a single sentence, ‘In the hands of the Negro teachers rests the destiny of the race.’”

In her book, “Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom,” Williams said she “moves across time to examine African Americans’ relationship to literacy during slavery, during the Civil War, and in the first decades of freedom.”

The book traces the historical antecedents to freed people’s intense desire to become literate. It demonstrates how the visions of enslaved African Americans emerged into plans and action once slavery ended.

Littlefield works at the University of South Carolina. She’s a scholar of the history of women, African Americans, and education with an emphasis on southern African American women and African American history from 1877 to the present.

The University of Illinois Press will publish her book on southern African American women schoolteachers during the Jim Crow era.

“Read Black memoirs or talk to your grandparents,” Perry said.

“One of the reasons I’ve written about Black formalism is that even scholars circulate the myth that Black people had nothing and built nothing in the segregated South,” she said.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.

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Grief, Advocacy, and Education: A Counselor Reflects on Black Maternal Health

SAN DIEGO VOICE & VIEWPOINT — Last month healthcare leaders, birth workers, and community members gathered to honor the legacy of Charleston native Dr. Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife and doctor of nursing practice who died in January from childbirth complications. She had participated in more than 300 births and specialized in helping Black women give birth safely.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Jennifer Porter Gore | Word-In-Black | San Diego Voice and Viewpoint

In 2024, the number of U.S. mothers who died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth dropped compared to 2023. But while slightly fewer Black mothers died that year, they still had three times the mortality rate of white women.

South Carolina’s rates of maternal deaths outpaced even the national rates. In fact, the state’s overall rate of maternal deaths between 2019 and 2023 was higher than all but eight states and the District of Columbia.

Last month healthcare leaders, birth workers, and community members gathered to honor the legacy of Charleston native Dr. Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife and doctor of nursing practice who died in January from childbirth complications. She had participated in more than 300 births and specialized in helping Black women give birth safely.

Her death shocked the community and her colleagues who are determined to address concerns about Black maternal health. The event also covered the importance of protecting mental health during grief and of men’s role in solving the maternal health crisis.

As both a therapist and a father, Lawrence Lovell, a licensed professional counselor and founder of Breakthrough Solutions, discussed ways the event’s attendees could process their grief over Green Smith’s death. He also shared ways male partners can advocate for women’s maternal health during pregnancy and childbirth.

Lovell spoke not just as a therapist but also as a father whose own family had briefly crossed paths with Green Smith. The event, he said, emerged organically from a moment of collective mourning.

Despite the grief, “it was still, like, a really beautiful event, a much-needed event, and it almost felt like we were all giving each other a collective family hug,” says Lovell.

His connection to Green Smith, Lovell says, was brief but meaningful during his wife’s pregnancy with their second child. Green Smith was practicing at the same birthing center where they had their child. She began practicing in Greenville a short time later.Even that short connection carried significance for Lovell, given the small number of Black maternal health professionals.

Lovell did not initially plan to become a mental health practitioner; he chose the career path after graduating from college, when someone suggested he consider psychology. His interest deepened when he noticed how few Black men work in mental health.

“Being Black man and playing football in college, there weren’t a lot of people that look like me talking about mental health,” says Lovell. “[I wanted] to give people that look like me an opportunity to work with someone that looks like them.”

Working with Expectant and New Parents

Lovell often counsels couples preparing for parenthood by, helping partners understand what a successful pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery look like. That often means helping women manage postpartum depression.

As a man, Lovell says, it’s “humbling” that a woman “just trusts me enough to work with me through their pregnancy or their postpartum recovery.”

In his work, Lovell has noticed how few men understand pregnancy before they experience it with their partner. Because early pregnancy symptoms are often invisible, he says, men may underestimate how much support a mom-to-be actually needs.

“Sometimes they may not realize they don’t know much about pregnancy and what to expect in those three trimesters,” Lovell says. “I tell a lot of the men that just because you can’t see [she’s pregnant] doesn’t mean that she won’t appreciate your intense support in that first trimester.”

Education about pregnancy and postpartum recovery, he says, can change how men support their partners.

Teaching Advocacy in the Delivery Room

Another major focus of Lovell’s counseling is preparing men to advocate for mothers during labor.

“Helping men understand what pregnancy looks like: what delivery is going to look like, and what are the realistic expectations that I should have of myself in postpartum,” he says.

Lovell encourages partners to be honest about their expectations for what will happen during delivery. He helps them prepare for the big day by discussing the birth plan and knowing how to quickly recognize problems. Clear communication, he says, prevents misunderstandings.

He regularly trains men to ask their partners detailed questions about their expectations during and after pregnancy. Advocacy in medical settings can be especially important and requires attention to details the mother may not be able to address.

“It’s always important to fine-tune things and truly understand what helps your partner feel most supported,” Lovell says. “Instead of guessing, you should ask.”

Lovell recalls a moment during the birth of his first child when he had to take that role.

During the delivery, “I felt like something wasn’t as sanitary as I’d like it to be,” he says. “I asked, ‘Hey, can you switch those out? Can you change your gloves?’”

Lovell has a succinct but powerful message he regularly shares with clients’ families, and he shared it with attendees at last month’s event.

“Just to believe women,” he says. “I’ve worked with different couples, and sometimes I’m not really sure that there’s enough empathy from the men.”

That includes how women express pain.

“If a woman says, ‘my pain is at a nine,’ just because how you would express yourself at a nine is different than how she’s expressing herself at [that level] doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe her,” he says.

Empathy, he says, can change outcomes far beyond the delivery room.

“We’ve got to believe women when they’re talking about their experiences and their feelings and their pain,” he says. “I think there’s a lot that we can prevent if we empathize better.”

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Future of Florida’s Black History Museum in Limbo

JACKSONVILLE FREE PRESS — A proposal sponsored by Tom Leek, a Republican from Ormond Beach, has now passed the Senate in back-to-back legislative sessions. But the House version, filed by Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville Republican, did not receive final approval in either year, effectively stalling the effort.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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Jacksonville Free Press

Plans to establish a long-awaited Black history museum in Florida are once again on hold after legislation needed to advance the project failed to clear the state House for a second consecutive year, despite repeated approval in the Senate.

A proposal sponsored by Tom Leek, a Republican from Ormond Beach, has now passed the Senate in back-to-back legislative sessions. But the House version, filed by Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville Republican, did not receive final approval in either year, effectively stalling the effort.

Under Florida law, identical or similar bills must pass both chambers before heading to the governor’s desk. Without House approval, the legislation has been unable to move forward, leaving the project in limbo. Long journey, contested location.

The proposed museum, formally known as the Florida Museum of Black History, has been years in the making, with lawmakers and community leaders framing it as a long-overdue institution to preserve and showcase the state’s African American heritage .A central point of contention has been the museum’s location. St. Augustine — widely recognized as the nation’s oldest city and a site deeply tied to both slavery and early Black history — emerged as the leading contender. Supporters argue the city’s historical significance makes it a natural home for the museum. However, competing interests and regional considerations have fueled debate, slowing consensus among lawmakers.

While the Senate-backed measure has consistently advanced, the lack of alignment in the House has underscored ongoing divisions about how and where the project should take shape.

The holdup in the Florida House appears to be less about opposition to the museum itself and more about a combination of procedural bottlenecks, unresolved structural issues, and lingering disagreements over how the project should be formalized and governed.

Despite the legislative setbacks, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has publicly voiced support for the museum. Speaking last month during the unveiling of a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass in St. Augustine, DeSantis said the project would move forward “one way or another,” signaling an intent to see the museum built regardless of legislative hurdles.

The anticipated museum has already cleared several hurdles. St. Johns County signed an agreement last year with Florida Memorial University to use the land that once housed its campus last year’s legislative session netted $1 million in funding for St. Johns County to work on planning and design for the museum. However, its anticipated that a million $3 million is needed.

Still, without statutory approval to finalize key components — including governance, funding mechanisms and site selection — the project remains largely conceptual.
With the House bill failing again, the timeline for the museum’s development is unclear. Lawmakers could revisit the proposal in the next legislative session, but any further delays risk pushing the project back several more years. Advocates warn that continued inaction could stall momentum for a museum many see as critical to telling a fuller, more accurate story of Florida’s past. For now, the effort remains paused — caught between political support at the top and legislative gridlock within the Capitol.