School “Outer-gration” and “Tokenism”: Segregated Black Educators Critique the Implementation of Desegregation, 1954-1970

• In Event: Lessons Lost in Six Decades Since Brown: Resurrecting the Sociocultural Dimensions of Race and Education

Abstract

The activities of black educators in segregated schools in the south preceded the equity agenda for black children that has been documented in histories of Brown, embraced a broader agenda for educating black children than was evidenced in the important NAACP activity, and worked collaboratively with attorneys to accomplish the Brown decision (Fairclough, 2007; Walker, 2005; Walker, 2009; Walker, 2013; Walker, In Press). However, with their massive firing and the dismantlement of their teachers’ organizations, the record of activities of these black educators in responding to desegregation has been largely deleted from the historical record and public memory (Kluger, 2004; Tushnet, 1987; St. James, 1980; Sullivan, 2009). As a result, contemporary discussions of school desegregation fail to include the perspective of those who fought the longest for equity for black children.
This paper proposes to import the activities and beliefs of black educators into the current desegregation debate. Specifically, it will 1) chronicle the critiques black educators launched against the desegregation practices implemented in 1970, and 2) discuss the sociological impact some educators believed the failed desegregation implementation would have on the long-term success of black children. The paper will also consider the ways the perspective of the educators aligned with, or diverged from, the political and legal conversations of their era.
The data for the analysis derive from the Horace Edward Tate Collection. This archival record encompasses 14 file cabinets containing the records of the Georgia Teachers and Education Association. Additionally, it includes books, reports, photographs, minutes, pamphlets, communications, and close to 300 hours of audio files documenting their activities. Materials from 1954-1970 will be analyzed, supplemented by a variety of other university and federal archival collections and approximately 50 hours of interviews. Historical ethnography will be the methodological tool for analysis (Walker, 1996, 2006).
Preliminary results reveal black educators critiqued stringently a variety of people and agencies responsible for equality in integration. These included local superintendents guilty of continued salary differentiation, unfair dismissals, and failure to follow federal guidelines; the National Education Association, whose staff did not reflect integration, who supported practices harming black teachers, and who was non-responsive to state-level impediments; and the Justice Department, H.E.W., and the Courts, all of whom were perceived to have less impact on local practice than the activities of the educators themselves. The educators also ignited local community protests, attempted to disrupt the dismissal of principals and teachers, and worked quietly with some civil rights groups. Although divisions in goals erupted as desegregation approached, many believed their practices were necessary to disrupt the “tokenism” that characterized desegregation practices and to create structures that would allow shared power. They also believed allowing desegregation to continue as implemented would cause black children to lose the role models, ambition, culture, and view of self necessary achieve at their highest levels.
Black educators failed in their efforts to restructure desegregation. However, revisiting their concerns challenges the accepted contemporary structure of desegregated schools and provides important context for current discussions on the performance of black children.

Author

• Vanessa Siddle Walker, Emory University