Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890

Description

Tracing the first two decades of state-funded African American schools, Educational Reconstruction addresses the ways in which black Richmonders, black Mobilians, and their white allies created, developed, and sustained a system of African American schools following the Civil War. Hilary Green proposes a new chronology in understanding postwar African American education, examining how urban African Americans demanded quality public schools from their new city and state partners. Revealing the significant gains made after the departure of the Freedmen's Bureau, this study reevaluates African American higher education in terms of developing a cadre of public school educator-activists and highlights the centrality of urban African American protest in shaping educational decisions and policies in their respective cities and states. Contents List of Abbreviations Introduction 1 Remaking the Former Confederate Capital: Black Richmonders and the Transition to Public Schools, 1865–1870 2 No Longer Slaves: Black Mobilians and the Hard Struggle for Schools, 1865–1870 3 To “Do That Which Is Best”: Richmond Colored Normal and the Development of Public Schoolteachers 4 Remaking Old Blue College: Emerson Normal and Addressing the Need for Public Schoolteachers 5 Shifting Strategies: Black Richmonders’ Quest for Quality Public Schools 6 Rethinking Partners: Black Mobilians’ Struggle for Quality Public Schools 7 Walking Slowly but Surely: The Readjusters and the Quality School Campaigns in Richmond 8 Still Crawling: Black Mobilians’ Struggle for Quality Schools Continues Epilogue: The Blair Education Bill and the Death of Educational Reconstruction, 1890 Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index