This project will outline the access and state of education from the 1920s throughout the 1980s regarding minorities. Education throughout history has been an idea of great concern for those who were not allowed the opportunity to receive it, and not questioned by those who could easily obtain it. Today many people regardless of social, economic, gender or racial differences can obtain an education that would have been denied to them if the time period were different. Though much change has occurred in regard to the education system within the last 70 years, this change does not mean that the dilemmas have been fixed. Discrimination in education still persist today, the education system has become a system of power and corruption, the economic standing of a family determines the probability their child will receive a good education or not. The inequality of education between public and private school is increasingly alarming. Why do most public schools not provide the same level of education as private schools? Why are the students who are receiving the lesser education mainly students of color?
Race is a large factor that greatly contributes to whether students receive and don’t receive adequate education that successfully prepares them for their future lives. For this reason, the history of the education needs to be analyzed, and it should be questioned why the education system is as flawed as it is today, history has taken an effect on the education system today in which ideals imposed throughout history still have versions of themselves in our broken education system. For instance, for several decades up to the mid 1950s education was segregated for blacks and whites. This segregation followed the education system through the 21stcentury. We need to analyze the history of education in the United States in order to be able to acknowledge the mistakes that have led to flaws today and be able to fix the education system, so that future generations regardless of race and economic standing.
Starting with the 1920s and ending with the 1980s, this exhibition will reflect the struggles and advances in education regarding minorities throughout the mid 20thcentury. Specifically, public opinion and influencers opinions regarding education during this time will be provided. Therefore, this puts a start to the beginning of this exhibition set in the 1920s, where white women were making advances that were not being shared by minority woman. White catholic women were able to obtain an education in Catholic schools [1]. The reason behind this is due to the male Catholic leaders in the church who needed to use an attractive cover in order to “protect women and promote traditional gender roles” [1]. Though this may be a positive step for white women it was not in the slightest shared by minority women who were still stuck within the domestic work industry.
The 1930s brought on economic turmoil after the stock market crash in 1929, education also underwent tough times, but Blacks experienced small improvements to their educational opportunity. Atlanta had a black college which provided higher education to black women. Atlanta School of Social Work was one of the only social work programs in the nation that allowed black women to take part in it [2]. Though there was a large gab in the amount of black and white women who were able to benefit after this program, for instance the article states that “there were thirteen black women as opposed to seventy-seven white women in welfare positions in Atlanta”.
The 1940s complexed the racial tensions in the united states due to Jim Crow state and local laws mainly in the Southern United States. Jim Crow laws prohibited people of color from being able to receive equal education alongside whites. Judge Paul McCormick took part in the ground-breaking 1947 case of Mendez V. Westminsterin which Mexican parents sued the white elementary school for not accepting her kids because of skin color. This case carries large importance given that it paved the way for Brown V. Board of Education. According to the book Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s melting pot and Civil Rights in the United States, Judge Paul John McCormick wrote that “A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage” [3]. This case occurred in California and shows progress in that Hispanics were receiving a chance to obtain an education.
The start of the Civil Rights Movement (1954) marks the beginning of the 1950s. Many important cases during this time were issued that helped black man receive an education, one of them was the McLaurin V. Oklahoma Board of Regents, in which the court dealt with a special brand of segregation in a border state, the case involved student McLaurin who was admitted to the University of Oklahoma with help of the court but once he got there he was required by the school to sit in separate tables in the lunch room and library, and separated desk in classrooms. The court in the case called this to wrong and went against this action. Second case is Sweatt V. Painterin which the court “decided in favor of Herman Sweatts plea for admission to the law school of the University of Texas in Austin” [4].
This exhibition then moves to set backs in the number of minorities that attend college and actually graduate. The idea of coeducational system of education became popular in the 1960s in which people and society were much more open to the idea of men and women receiving reflective education together. Though the idea of integrated education was still not being allowed the proper amount of popularity as it should. Statistics and research done in the 90s regarding the 60s condition on education availability, shows that minorities were still below the average amount of students in college and straggling along at a small percentage in numbers of attendance. In the 1960s there was a gap of 13 percent between the college participation rates of Whites and non-Whites. The 1960s also roared with the student movements which was ran by the organization Students for a Democratic Society which flourished in the mid-to-late 1960s. This organization then went on to host a convection that gained national attention not only to the cause but to the movement itself [5].
This exhibition concludes with the 1970s and the 1980s which were a time of improvement and setbacks of educational opportunities for minorities. The 1970s brought on court cases where minorities were helped in legislations that were beneficial to them. For instance, in 1974 Federal judge Arthur Garrity orders that African American students attending predominantly white schools should be provided school bus transportation in Boston. In addition, Hispanic people were also provided with benefits, given that after migrating to this country it can be harder to level oneself to the American education [6]. In 1975 the National Association of Bilingual Education was founded providing instructional practices to diverse children of different linguistics and culture. This association also protects the rights of language-minority Americans clearly in focus as states and communities move forward with educational reforms [7]. The 1980s began with president Jimmy Carter Signing the Refugee Education Assistance Act which brought many Cuban and a small number of Haitian refugees to Florida. The rest of the 1980s was not as positive given that conservative president Ronald Reagan made major cuts to free tuition and higher education funding [8].
Notes:
- Ryan, Ann Marie. “Meeting Multiple Demands: Catholic Higher Education for Women in Chicago, 1911-1939.” American Catholic Studies120, no. 1 (2009): 1-26.
- Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. “Quiet Suffering: Atlanta Women in the 1930s.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly61, no. 2 (1977): 112-24.
- Flores, Ruben. ““The Sun Has Exploded”: Integration and the California School.” In Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States, 209-39. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
- Eamon, Tom. “The 1950s.” In The Making of a Southern Democracy: North Carolina Politics from Kerr Scott to Pat McCrory, 32-57. University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
- Baker, Therese L., and William Vélez. “Access to and Opportunity in Postsecondary Education in the United States: A Review.” Sociology of Education69 (1996): 82-101.
- Sass, Edmund. “American Educational History: A Hypertext Timeline.” American Educational History Timeline. April 15, 2019. Accessed May 08, 2019.
- “NABE Home.” NABE Home. Accessed May 08, 2019.
- Clabaugh, Gary K. “THE C E The Educational Legacy 256 of Ronald Reagan by …” 2004. Accessed May 8, 2019. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ684842.pdf.