University of Leipzig

SoSe 2003

„Black American Higher Education”

by

Sandra Kemerle

Table of Contents: Page:

1 Introduction 3

2 A Historical Overview of the Development of Higher Education in the United States – Native American and Black American Higher Education 3
2.1 An Overview of the Development of the Native Americans 3
2.2 Indian Curriculum 4
2.3 An Overview of the Development of the Black American Education in History 5
2.4 Unusual Difficulties of the Development of Black Higher Education 6

3 Carney’s Black Higher Education: A Brief Comparison 7
3.1 The Period of Prohibition 8
(prior to the Civil War)
3.2 The Period of Development 9
(roughly the remainder of the 19th century)
3.3 The Period of Segregation 9
(from Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896 to Brown vs. Board of Education 1954)
3.4 The Period of Desegregation or Integration 11
(beginning with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s)

4 Conclusion 12

5 Bibliography 14

1 Introduction

This paper will deal with the development of higher education, in particular, with the development of African and Native American higher education in America. It may be questioned, from developments that speedily followed, whether the mass of blacks did not really desire this advantage of higher education as a sign of freedom, rather than from a wish for knowledge, and covet it because it had formerly been the privilege of their masters, and marked a broad distinction between the races. It was natural that this should be so, when they had been excluded from this privilege by pains and penalties, when in some States it was one of the gravest offenses to teach a negro to read and write. This prohibition was accounted for by the peculiar sort of property that slavery created, which would become insecure if intelligent.

Both, the Native American and the Black American population went through specific phases or periods of development in higher education and so there are questions that help to follow the specific development of each population. The questions are which happenings in the development of Indian education has affected Indian education profoundly and which laws, if there were any, have helped this process of development to integrate the Indian culture into white society? The same questions can be analyzed for the Black American population, how blacks could be integrated and which periods occurred during the development of black education after slavery was abolished? A historical overview of the development of higher education in the United States of the two minorities – of the Native Americans and Black Americans - will be given.

2 A Historical Overview of the Development of Higher Education in the United States – Native American and Black American Higher Education

2.1 An Overview of the Development of the Native Americans

Issues as equity and equality of educational opportunity, local autonomy, community involvement, curriculum development, and the relationship of cultural values to the way schooling is conducted will be described in general. Schooling as a formal institution for Indians started with missionaries, and teachers in missionary schools were at least as interested in salvation as in education. According to many observers, the regimen of the schools usually included getting Indians to dress, speak, and act like white people (Whiteman, 1986). Church-operated schools, of course, were also common for white people during the early years of the United States. Whereas many of these church schools were replaced in the nineteenth century by locally-funded and locally-controlled public schools, mission schools for American Indian students were largely replaced by schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). These schools were administered directly from the nation′s capital. At that time Indians were not U.S. citizens, and they lacked the right to control their own lives and the education of their children (Eder & Reyhner, 1988; Whiteman, 1986).

The Indian Commissioner Thomas J. Morgan wrote in 1889 that “the Indians must conform to ‘the white man’s ways,’ peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must.” (Documents of United States Indian Policy, 107, 1889).

Many Indians began their education at this time in boarding schools, often far from home, where they had their hair cut, where their native clothes were replaced, and where they were often punished for speaking their own languages (Whiteman, 1986). Official government policy encouraged detribalizing Indians partly through education and partly through allotting Indian communal lands (Eder & Reyhner, 1988; Whiteman, 1986). Moreover, many citizens regarded Indians as "Vanishing Americans," and it was commonplace for newspapers to advocate the virtual extermination of American Indians (Murphy & Murphy, 1989). Such policies and attitudes did not reflect the needs of Indian people, as more and more non-Indians began to realize in the early twentieth century (Meriam, 1928). After the First World War Indians received citizenship, and during the New Deal tribes assumed greater responsibility for their own governance, more Indian heritage was taught in BIA schools, and some boarding schools were replaced by local day schools. From a population low of about 237,000 in 1900, the American Indian population grew to 1.5 million in 1980, and increasing numbers of Indian children began to attend public schools. Two-thirds of all Indian children who live on reservations attend public schools (Eder & Reyhner, 1988). After the Second World War, along with Blacks and other minorities, American Indians began actively to promote self-determination and their own civil rights generally. This development has affected Indian education profoundly. The 1972 Indian Education Act funded supplementary programs to help American Indian students both on and off reservations. In so doing, it recognized that 50% of all Indians lived in urban areas and 75% lived off reservations. In 1970 President Nixon in his message to Congress declared a new era of Indian self-determination, and in 1975 Congress passed the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act (http://si.unm.edu/si2002/JGARCIA/TIMELINE/TIM_000D.HTM).

2.2 Indian Curriculum

In October 1889, Commissioner Thomas J. Morgan presented the general principles at the Lake Mohonk Conference for a national system of Indian schools, modeled on the public school system of the states. Two points were presented to help the Native Americans to assimilate in white society:

“The work of Indian education should be completely systematized. The camp schools, agency boarding schools, and the great industrial schools should be related to each other so as to form a connected and complete whole. So far as possible there should be a uniform course of study, similar methods of instruction, the same textbooks, and a carefully organized and well-understood system of industrial training”. “Education should seek the disintegration of the tribes, and not their segregation. They should be educated, not as Indians, but as Americans. In short, the public school should do for them what it is so successfully doing for all the other races in this country, assimilate them.” (Documents of United States Indian Policy, 108, 1889).

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