Education of Blacks in the South, The

James D. Anderson's The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 explores the antecedents and unfolding of Black education in the South. He asserts that the conflict of free labor versus slave labor alongside the socioeconomic political environment of the post-Civil War South shaped decades of Black education and its curriculum debates. This work provides an in-depth examination of the origins of the curriculum in segregated schools.

Preceding legal freedom, Anderson notes that Blacks were drawn to education and founded underground schools for themselves. As the slave-ocracy crumbled, efforts to educate Blacks gained support from abolitionists, missionary societies, and benevolent Whites.

By the mid-1860s, the newly established Freedmen's Bureau found 500 Black schools already existing as the formative period for exslaves' education was underway. The curriculum quickly became contentious as Southern Black leaders envisioned a classical and liberal curriculum for literacy, uplift, and socialization. Powerful Northern philanthropists and social engineers wanted stability in the new South.

Anderson describes the initial architecture of the new Black education and curriculum. Hampton founder and leader, Samuel Armstrong, brought his missionary background, military experience with Black soldiers, and understanding of the political economy of the new South to the task. Proclaiming people of African descent as inferior, he felt them teachable and suited to the agricultural and vocational demands of the new economy. Most importantly, Blacks, he felt, needed character education and moral training. He established Hampton as a normal school committed to industrial or trade education and teacher training.

Anderson's exploration of the Hampton curriculum revealed daily course hours in vocational training alongside Bible study, lessons in practical morals, citizenship training, and character building. Respect for property and contracts was a part of the curriculum. Students were taught table manners, cleanliness, and the habits of work. Ideologically, the plight of Blacks was explained in [Page 322]the Hampton social studies course as natural and that their advancement was best accomplished by social responsibility. These concepts were packaged as the uplift and development of the race. Accomodationism meant Blacks must fit into the social order, not try to disrupt it. The Hampton idea evolved as a merger of pedagogy and accomodationist social philosophy. The curriculum was, in effect, ideology. Hampton became a case study in the political construction of school curriculum.

The last few decades of the 19th century saw the collapse of Reconstruction, a surge in Southern violence against Blacks, the expansion of Northern industrialization, and the consolidation of corporate hegemony. As the century turned, philanthropic foundations became more involved in Black education and the selection of school knowledge.

The curriculum became a major battleground as Northern corporatists made extended efforts to connect with Southern moderates. Anderson chronicles the many conferences; for example, he chronicles Capon Springs, which was attended by corporatists and during which policy was established even though Black educators were excluded. The industrial philanthropists favored manual and vocational training combined with accomodationist ideology instead of a liberal, more classical curriculum. The curriculum of accomodationism, Anderson argues, was sought to maintain Southern racial hegemony while advancing the political economy of the South. The mission of the school curriculum aimed to keep Blacks working in their natural environment. Politically, accomodationist education helped placate and unite the previously hostile Whites of the South with Northern aims.

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