Equal Schools/Equal Schooling, 1787–1974: The History of a Black Education Movement

• In Event: 66.057 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 66.057-3 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Historical Inquiry

Abstract

This study describes a 20th century Black Education Movement rooted in the 18th and 19th century Black struggle for equal schools in Boston. It uses oral history, case study methods, and critical race theory to provide counter-narratives to stories of white resistance, forced busing, and class warfare. Its purpose is to center Black voices and decenter white resistance to school desegregation. It provides a public space for African Americans, who were born before Brown v. Board of Education (1954), to provide accounts of their activism in dismantling segregated education. Twenty narrators who were activists between 1960 and 1975 provided two hours each of video or audio interviews. Equal educational opportunity was a central theme of the desegregation remedy.

Author

• Lyda S. Peters, Boston College