The color of education

African-American education experienced vast amounts of change over the course of the 20th Century. 

 

The United States Supreme Court decision in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case established the “separate but equal” doctrine that allowed racial segregation in public spaces, as long as the two sets of spaces were of equal quality. This ruling is what allowed segregation in education to continue until the famous 1954 decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education trial, which declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. However, the schools in North Carolina would not meet the federal desegregation standards until 1971, seventeen years after the Supreme Court ruling.

 

Grassroots action was often required to create satisfactory schools for the local African-American community. Funds were often raised to build schools in the area or to match the donations of educational initiatives to help with the construction of schools.

 

The Color of Education primarily focuses on the McCray School, a rural school house in Alamance county; the Rosenwald Fund, which contributed to the education of approximately one-third of African-Americans in the southern states; community life and conditions in segregated schools; and the experience of desegregation in North Carolina.