African-Centered Education

Educating African Americans has been a controversial subject since their arrival in America in 1619. In the antebellum South, educating enslaved Blacks was illegal. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, White groups debated the educational fate of freed Blacks. In 1890 and 1891 at two conferences in Lake Mohonk, New York, and in a series of annual meetings known as the Capon Springs Conferences, White businessmen, political figures, philanthropists, missionaries, and other interested parties considered the “Negro Question” to determine what educational programs for Blacks would best serve White interests. A salient feature of these meetings was the absence of Blacks.

These gatherings had similar results—a consensus to promote industrial education for Blacks. A goal of the industrial model was to maintain the southern social order while preserving a Black accommodationist underclass. Representing White business and an emerging political agenda, these Whites became, in the words of William H. Watkins, “the White architects of Black education.” In contrast, the American Missionary Association (AMA), Quakers, and other Whites supported a more traditional liberal arts approach. The AMA was also involved in industrial educational programs.

Black scholars, activists, and educators took diverse positions. Some aligned with prevailing White opinions. Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), educated at Hampton Institute and greatly influenced by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, promoted the industrial education model as president of Tuskegee Institute. More radical forces opposed industrial education.

Black nationalists and Pan Africanists—Martin R. Delany (1812–1885); Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912); Alexander Crummell (1819–1898), founder of the American Negro Academy; and Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association—promoted education as a means to empower people of African descent for self-determination. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950) critiqued the “mis-education of the Negro” while embracing the idea of education for self-determination in his powerful book published in 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was a consistent voice for the “classical” liberal education. Blacks viewed the struggle for their educational uplift a crucial part of the quest for freedom and equality. James D. Anderson describes the legacy and significant role played by Black individuals prior to 1865 in their own educational advancement and self-determination.

The promise of desegregation, mandated by the 1954 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, became problematic as Whites in the North and South resisted equal educational opportunities for Blacks. Segregation persisted, and Black urban schools went mostly underfunded. Measures of achievement varied widely by race throughout the latter part of the 20th century. Consequently, other solutions for quality education for Blacks in public schools were sought. African-centered education developed as a way to empower African American students intellectually, culturally, and politically for self-determination in an increasingly diverse, global society.

In the 1970s, advocates for the cultural linguistic approach to learning worked with selected schools in Chicago, Illinois; Topeka, Kansas; and Compton, California, to infuse culturally based content into the school curriculum.

During the 1980s, the Portland, Oregon, public schools implemented an innovative program to improve educational outcomes for African [Page 70]American students and other ethnic and racial groups. Prominent scholars led by Asa G. Hilliard, III (1933–2007) developed the African-American Baseline Essays, a series of guides for teachers, in language arts, social studies, mathematics, science, music, and fine arts, introducing African-centered curriculum content. Teachers participated in professional development and developed lesson plans for Grades K–5. Curriculum materials developed in Portland were shared with schools in other regions of the United States to supplement emerging African-centered programs.

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