Political/Economy

• 1863-Emanicipation Proclamation announced the end of slavery
• 1865-Congress passed 13th amendment freed four millions slaves, 31/2 of them in the South
• 1866-14th amendment passed giving full citizenship to slaves upon its ratification in 1868
• Ku Klux Klan founded by southern white people in part to keep blacks from voting
• 1867, the North increased its influence in the South with the 1st Reconstruction Act which gave Congress more control over the Southern political economy
• 1870-15th Amendment established right for black males to vote which made black men the majority of voters in five southern states
• 1877-Withdrawal of federal troops for the South and the end of Reconstruction
• Marks the beginning of what is known as the “period of redemption” were white southerners were left to “redeem” the South by restoring almost total white domination over political and economic life
• Local white supremacy laws were passed to prohibit black people from using public facilities such as parks, buildings, cemeteries, railroad cars, rest rooms, and so on - Jim Crow Laws
• 1890-Mississippi established literacy and poll tax requirements that deprived most black people of the vote and eleven other states followed this plan
• In Louisiana, black voters were cut from 130,000 to 1,300 in a six year period
• Many black southerners headed north in search of better educational and economic opportunities.

• Black schools developed with some success and two key factors protected the continued development

 1) Black people could still vote, and the redeemers knew that if they wanted to win black votes, it as politically dangerous to tamper with black public education
 2) Black education was protected because of the level safeguards for equal funding that the freedmen had inserted in the state constitution

• Drastic reduction in progress after the following bill was passed:

1890 -House Bill 504 allowed township trustees to fund white schools at a higher level than black schools because
 1) Blacks received nearly all of the areas school funds while paying virtually no taxes
 2) Black pupils were not mentally advanced to the point where they needed as much education as white pupils, and therefore didn't need as much money for school funds

• Conservative social philosophy which accommodated white supremacy and racial segregation
• Belief that industrial education and skilled labor would serve as a means to overcome racial and class discrimination
• Darwin's theory of biological evolution which provided a rational explanation of the unequal distribution of wealth and political power among racial groups
• Oppression thought to be the natural process of moral and cultural evolution
• Black people had only evolved to a cultural stage that was thousands of years behind whites, thus their inferior position represented the natural order of social evolution

Tensions between Dubois and Washington

1.  Education or social stability:  Does education for social stability oppose development of critical capacities for a free society?

2.  Education for employable skills:  Does the goal of developing employable skills conflict with developing analytical and critical skills?

3.  Schooling for social reform:  Is it the responsibility of education to address deep social problems e.g.. racial discrimination, or should these be addressed though other avenues e.g. political change?

4.  Education for group differences:  Should differences in groups e.g. race, gender, provide a basis for offering different types of education or is it more important to focus on what people have in common?

5.  Education for whose interest?  Should schools serve the interests of industry and the economy and will this also serve the interests of the majority of young people?