New Questions: African American Education After the Civil War

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 31

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

Our panel brings three new perspectives to African-American education during Reconstruction. The first is theoretical, interpreting Reconstruction through the prism of memory. The second is quantitative, measuring the extent of physical destruction by terrorist organizations. The third is geographical, extending boundaries of analysis beyond the South. Through these interpretive lenses, we hope to renew attention to the era from historians and non-historians alike, broadening discussions of nineteenth-century schooling. Moreover, in ways that speak across the papers, we hope to pose questions about periodization—the ways in which Reconstruction was or was not exceptional, and how it relates to previous and subsequent decades—as well as the uses of historical evidence to isolate Southern Reconstruction from the broader sweep of African-American educational history.

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Christopher M. Span, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Papers

• Remembering Education, Remembering Freedom: African American Memoirs of Reconstruction, 1880–1920 - Ben Davidson, New York University

• Quantifying the Destruction of African American Schools During Reconstruction - Campbell Scribner, University of Maryland - College Park