An Armageddon of Righteousness

Chapter 5 documents a new and transformative vision of school integration that blended Black nationalist ideals of self-determination with the goal of racially diverse and inclusive schools. Black educational activists maintained that for all of its challenges, integration was the single most effective way to guarantee equal school financing, qualified teachers, advanced courses, and adequate facilities for Black students. This chapter considers two districts where Black educational activists successfully fought for and won integrated schools: the suburban town of Montclair, New Jersey, and the city of Hartford, Connecticut. It also locates strong support for separatism in the form of Afrocentric public schools, which became popular again in the early 1990s. The struggle for northern school integration remains in flux and unresolved—but many Black educational activists continue to advocate for schools that are racially diverse and committed to nurturing and affirming Black identities in institutions with explicit restorative justice frameworks.

Conflict in the Community

Chapter 4 charts the most contested phase of Black educational activism in the North as support for Black-controlled schools expanded alongside the Black Power movement, concurrent with the growth of court-ordered school desegregation across the urban North. “Community-control” activists, like those in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, saw separation as a rational response to what they viewed as the dismal failure of school integration. They called for community control over administration, curriculum, pedagogy, and hiring in majority Black schools and called for desegregation plans to be halted. Student activists demanded Black history courses, fairer discipline and dress code policies, and more respect for Black culture. Not everyone agreed with this renewed vision of autonomous Black institution-building, especially an older generation of civil rights warriors. Although briefly appealing, community control and Afrocentric curricula did not successfully equalize public education and receded in the early 1970s.

The Education That Is Their Due

Chapter 2 identifies a distinct uptick in northern Black support for separate schools. The rise of scientific racism fueled anti-Black discrimination that accelerated alongside the first Great Migration and the Great Depression. Hostile whites segregated classrooms and buildings in defiance of state law as Black populations increased. At the same time, there is compelling evidence from New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan that Black families either passively accepted or actively requested separate classrooms and schools in order to access Black teachers. Many Black northerners believed separate schools would offer a higher quality education and more of the teaching and administrative jobs that sustained the Black middle class. Still, this position was far from universal, and many northern Black communities energetically resisted school segregation. A growing number of Black intellectuals and civil rights activists vehemently objected to any form of state-sponsored segregation and campaigned actively for school integration.

Caste Abolished

Chapter 1 examines the earliest debates over school integration in Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Jamaica (New York), and a number of smaller towns. It argues that Black northerners viewed integrated public schools as essential to abolishing slavery, establishing Black citizenship, and eliminating racial prejudice. For abolitionists and Black leaders, the symbolic ideal of school integration took precedence over concerns about the quality of education available to Black youth. In contrast, Black families and teachers prioritized access to high-quality education and believed separate schools could better meet this goal. The ensuing debates between Black integrationists and separatists were intimately tied to the abolitionist movement, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the rise of Jim Crow. By the turn of the twentieth century, Black northerners had won the right to attend public school on an equal and integrated basis, yet they struggled against a rising tide of bigotry and residential segregation.

A Powerful Weapon

Chapter 3 highlights a resurgence of northern Black support for school integration alongside the expanding civil rights movement. The outbreak of World War II created economic opportunities that drew Black migrants North in a second wave and sparked more militant civil rights activism. NAACP leaders persuaded northern Black communities to reject school segregation. By citing anti-discrimination legislation and organizing petitions and boycotts, these activists won the formal desegregation of public schools in the North between 1940 and 1954. A potent combination of civil rights activism, the decline of scientific racism, and the emergence of the Cold War pushed school integration to the forefront of national politics. Following the Brown decision, northern Blacks demanded school integration. The process was contentious, especially when districts closed Black schools and fired Black teachers. By 1965, many Black northerners expressed frustration with school integration and what they viewed as its failure to improve the quality of education for Black youth.

Conclusion

The book concludes with a consideration of how northern Black debates over school integration versus separation transformed the Black civil rights movement. Black northerners who participated in acts of educational protest challenged institutionalized racism in American schools and enacted lasting, substantial improvements. They organized grassroots movements that demanded specific reforms in local public institutions, in the process mobilizing Black northerners to become involved in local, state, and national politics. The inherent tensions between school integrationists and separatists created a dynamic, evolving grassroots movement for Black educational reform that insists on racial justice in public education and moves Americans closer to the meaningful reforms that will create equitable and high-quality public schools for all.

Introduction

In 1944, Gunnar Myrdal famously identified the “American Dilemma,” an inherent tension between widespread faith in equal opportunity on one hand and discrimination against African Americans on the other. This book traces a similar phenomenon in northern public schools, which promised an equal education for all and then consigned Black children to second-class facilities. This paradox generated the African American dilemma, or the question of whether school integration or separate, Black-controlled schools in a legally desegregated system would more effectively advance the Black freedom struggle. This book offers a social history of northern Black debates over school integration in the North. It chronicles an extraordinary range of Black educational activism in the North stretching from the common school era to the present, and analyzes how this work—much of it carried out by women and youth—inspired the larger civil rights movement and created substantially more equal public schools.