Gallery Walk
Education and Race in Mississippi
Photo Credit: ©United Methodist Board of Global Ministries / Ken Thompson
1
Pre-Mississippi
2
1400’s-1600’s
Koranic Sankore University in Timbuktu, Mali
Source: National Geographic
3
Mississippi
4
Slave codes made education nearly
impossible
THE LAW PROHIBITED –
“all assemblies of slaves, or free negroes or
mulattoes, mixing and associating with
such slaves, above the number of five, at
any place of public resort, or at a meeting
house, in the night, or at any school, for
teaching them reading or writing, either in
the day or night, under whatsoever
pretext"
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
5
1863 - 1875
Reconstruction
• Federal authority and protection
• The Black and Tan Convention
• New Constitution, ratified by the voters
in 1869, including suffrage and robust
education clause
• Federal approval of the 1869
Constitution
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
6
1869
The Education Clause: The Constitution of 1869
ARTICLE VIII - School Fund, Education and Science
Section 1.
As the stability of a republican form of government
depends mainly upon the intelligence and virtue of
the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to
encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of
intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural
improvement, by establishing a uniform system of
free public schools, by taxation or otherwise, for all
children between the ages of five and twenty-one
years, and shall, as soon as practicable, establish
schools of higher grade.
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
7
1869
Tougaloo College Founded
The Normal Department of Tougaloo was
recognized as a teacher training school until
1892, at which time the College ceased to
receive aid from the state. Courses for
college credit were first offered in 1897.
Source: Tougaloo College
8
WHITE RESISTANCE TO BLACK EDUCATION
DURING RECONSTRUCTION
• Arrests of teachers under the Black Codes
• Attacks on black schools
• Ku Klux Klan attacks on black teachers,
students
• Economic resistance – refusing to lease
property for schools - refusing to house
teachers – withholding of payment for
teachers
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
9
1870
An Act to admit the State of Mississippi to
Representation in the Congress of the United States
–Feb. 22, 1870
• Any official who had engaged in insurrection or
rebellion was prohibited from holding public
office unless relieved of this prohibition by
Congress.
• Conditions of Admission:
The Constitution of Mississippi shall never be so
amended or changed:
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
10
• “… to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the
United States of the right to vote who are entitled
to vote by the Constitution herein recognized…”
• “… to deprive any citizen of the United States, on
account of his race, color or previous condition of
servitude of the right to hold office…”
• “… to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the
United States of school rights and privileges
secured by the constitution of said State.”
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
11
Promises broken
• Reconstruction ends in 1875
• A great deal of violence surrounding
Mississippi elections
• The “revolution” in Mississippi
• Hays/Tilden Compromise
• Last Federal troops withdrawn in 1877
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
12
1875
The 15 years following the Redeemers’
Revolution of 1875
• Control over the majority black population by force,
violence and intimidation
• Promises of the 1869 Constitution – the franchise and a
strong commitment to public education – broken
• Sharecropping system manipulated to tie freemen to the
land, in lieu of slavery
• Federal protection continued to slip away as Congress
became unwilling to enact further protective legislation
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
13
1875
Civil Rights Act passed by Congress
The act protected all Americans, regardless of
race, in their access to public accommodations
and facilities such as restaurants, theaters, trains
and other public transportation, and protected
the right to serve on juries. The act did not
address public schools. It was not enforced, and
the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional
in 1883.
Source: PBS
14
1875
Salaries of Black teachers
Black teachers in Mississippi averaged $53 a
month, only $4 less than the average white
teacher.
By 1890 Black teachers were earning only $23,
which was $10 less than the white average.
Source: A Class of Their Own: Black teachers in the segregated South by: Adam Fairclough
15
1889
U.S. Senator James Z. George (MS) to the
Mississippi Legislature, October 21, 1889
“Our chief duty when we meet in
Convention, is to devise such measures,
consistent with the Constitution of the
United States, as will enable us to
maintain a home government, under the
control of the white people of the State.”
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
16
1890
The Constitutional Convention of 1890
• Constitutional Convention called by Legislature with a
mandate to amend 1869 Constitution or enact a new
constitution
• The conveners ignored the amendment requirements
under the existing constitution
• Fear that given the universal franchise in the 1869
Constitution and the 14th and 15th Amendments, any
scheme to deny the black franchise by violence and
intimidation would bring federal troops
• By 1890, the population was 57.5% Black
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
17
1890
Eliminating the black franchise in the 1890
Constitution
• Residency requirement
• Literacy requirement
• Constitutional interpretation requirement
• Poll tax requirement
• Gerrymandering of election districts to limit
influence of the black counties
• Limitations on the right to hold office
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
18
1890
Racial Segregation of the schools – a new 1890
constitutional mandate
Article VIII Sec. 207. Separate schools shall be
maintained for children of the white and colored races.
• Separate schools perpetuated the concept of white
supremacy upon which the 1890 Constitution was
enacted
• Separate schools allowed the State to diminish black
education while providing more support for the white
schools
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
19
The Convention ultimately decided on a more subtle
plan to underfund schools for black students
• State funding for a 4 month school term
• Districts providing less than 4 months of school
received State funds only for payment of teachers
for time actually taught
• More wealthy Districts were free to raise funds
locally for a longer school term and for additional
costs above state share
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
20
1899
For nearly a century, the State denied black citizens the
franchise and public education in furtherance of
economic benefit and political control
“In educating the Negro we implant in him all manner of
aspirations and ambitions which we then refuse to allow
him to gratify….Yet people talk about elevating the race by
education! It is not only folly, but it comes pretty nearly
being criminal folly. The Negro isn’t permitted to advance
and their education only spoils a good field hand and
makes a shyster lawyer or a fourth-rate teacher. It is
money thrown away.” (James K. Vardaman, Greenwood
Commonwealth, June 30, 1899)
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
21
1900
A textbook published in 1900 outlined the
necessity of slavery to Mississippi’s
economic system and way of life. Slavery
was not evil, as the so-called “ignorant”
northern abolitionists argued, but a
positive good, because it benefitted
everyone involved, especially the slave.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995 by
Rebecca Miller Davis
22
1906
A Black teacher association was organized
in Mississippi.
Throughout the south, these organization
were formed to facilitate the professional
development of teachers in Black schools
and to lobby for better public funding of
Black education.
Source: A Class of Their Own: Black teachers in the segregated South by: Adam Fairclough
23
1939
Charles Sydnor and Claude Bennett’s Mississippi
History (1939) stated that “the Negroes were
well cared for, given enough food and clothing,
and not required to do more than a reasonable
amount of work.” The authors admitted that
some masters were cruel, “but even such
owners generally gave their slaves fairly good
care.” When slaves ran away, they argued, they
did so because they “were tired of work, or
deserved punishment and wanted to escape it.”
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 19001995 by Rebecca Miller Davis
24
1939
Richard McLemore’s Mississippi History argued that
the Klan provided a much-needed service to white
people, since “the government of the state gave the
citizens almost no protection. The white people
therefore had to protect themselves without the
help of sheriff or police.” The authors defended the
Klan, admitting that their actions were illegal, but
arguing that they had no choice because the
Reconstruction governments were not enforcing the
law … The Klan, according to McLemore, “helped
the South at a difficult time.”
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 19001995 by Rebecca Miller Davis
25
1949
Richard McLemore’s Mississippi Through Four Centuries
claimed that “the life the Negro lived as a slave was much
better than that which he had lived in Africa. It was said that
his condition would continue to improve more rapidly as a
slave than as a free man.” McLemore portrayed the masters
as saviors of the black race, who readily supplied their slaves
with seemingly every need and want, including summer and
winter clothing of “good quality” and “as much bread, and
usually as much milk and vegetables, as they wish[ed].” Slaves
led a contented life with a minimal workload, for “they [had]
no night work, [were] provided with comfortable quarters,”
and their masters were “kind, indulgent, not over-exacting,
and sincerely interested in the physical well-being of their
dependents.”
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995 by
Rebecca Miller Davis
26
1954
In a landmark decision in Brown vs. Board
of Education, the Supreme Court declares
segregation unconstitutional.
Within two weeks, textbook publishers
meet in Jackson, Mississippi, to discuss the
ruling’s possible impact on the textbook
business.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995
by Rebecca Miller Davis
27
1955 Holmes County – Durant School – 2
nd
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
Grade
1955
Holmes County – Goodman School – Chapel in
Auditorium
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1955
Tallahatchie County – Locopolis School – 73 Students
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1955
Tallahatchie County –Tutwiler Elementary School
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1955
Panola County – Batesville School District-1st Grade
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1955
Panola County – Eureka Springs School –
All Grades
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1956
Myrtle School
Union County –
1956
Union County –
New Albany Elem. School
Cafeteria
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1956
Jones County – Mt. Olive School
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1956
Benton County – Hines School
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1956
Benton County – Ashland School
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
1956
The state begins requiring Mississippi
history of all ninth-graders and demands
textbooks that toe the pro-white, antiintegrationist political line. In doing so, it
establishes a way to reinforce not only
the existence of a segregated society, but
the belief in it.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 19001995 by Rebecca Miller Davis
38
1959
The Mississippi Story (1959) contained
two photographs showing “one of
Mississippi’s modern Negro schools”
and “one for our newer [white] school
buildings.” The photographs gave the
appearance of separate and equal
schools for the races.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 19001995 by Rebecca Miller Davis
39
1960
The Mississippi Senate passes a bill that
gives newly elected Governor Ross Barnett
full control over selecting textbooks.
Barnett argues that “all of us ought to be
against anything in our textbooks that
would teach subversion or integration. Our
children must be properly informed about
the Southern and true American way of
life.”
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995
by Rebecca Miller Davis
40
1960s
The Freedom Schools of the 1960s were developed by the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during
the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. They were
intended to counter the “sharecropper education”
received by so many African Americans and poor whites.
Through reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and civics,
participants received a progressive curriculum during a sixweek summer program that was designed to prepare
disenfranchised African Americans to become active
political actors on their own behalf. Nearly 40 freedom
schools were established serving close to 2,500 students,
including parents and grandparents.
Source: Teaching for Change
41
“In order for us as poor and oppressed people to
become a part of a society that is meaningful, the
system under which we now exist has to be radically
changed… I am saying as you must say, too, that in
order to see where we are going, we not only must
remember where we have been, but we must
understand where we have been.” -- Ella Baker, from
Robert P. Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr., Radical Equations, Math Literacy and Civil Rights
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
42
Selected expenditures above state minimum
program for selected counties – local share
(Data from Interrogatory Answers of the United States in U. S. v. Mississippi-data is per child,
quoted in Dissent of Circuit Judge John R. Brown)
DISTRICT
WHITE
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
AMITE COUNTY
$70.46
$2.24
BENTON COUNTY
CLAIBORNE
COUNTY
COAHOMA COUNTY
HINDS COUNTY
LEFLORE COUNTY
MADISON COUNTY
YAZOO COUNTY
$59.42
$142.64
$15.63
$19.88
$139.33
$12.74
$80.24
$175.38
$10.41
$9.52
$171.24
$4.35
$245.55
$2.92
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
43
Difference in instructional cost per child in
average daily attendance - by race
(Data from Interrogatory Answers of the United States in U. S. v. Mississippi)
19001901
19291930
19391940
19491950
19561957
White
$8.20
$40.42
$31.23
$78.70
$128.50 $173.42
Black
$2.67
$7.45
$6.69
$23.83
$78.70 $117.10
Source: Deliberate Denial of Public Education by Rita L. Bender & William J. Bender
19601961
44
1960s
All adopted Mississippi textbooks continue to mourn the
passing of the Old South and to perpetuate the Confederate
myth of Reconstruction as “tragedy.” In a series of textbooks
Mississippi: A History (1962), Mississippi: Yesterday and
Today (1968), and Your Mississippi (1974), John K.
Bettersworth continued a narrative of white supremacy.
Bettersworth’s 1964 textbook discussed how “the War for
Southern Independence…began like a glorious revolution.”
Like his predecessors, Bettersworth blamed losing the war
on various groups, including “abolitionist crusaders of the
North” with their “violent propaganda,” Yankee intruding
armies, and disloyal slaves.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995 by
Rebecca Miller Davis
45
1965
Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter were the first Black
parents to enroll their children in the all-white schools of
Sunflower County, Miss.
The Carters were threatened with eviction, and found
credit in local stores cut off and their home shattered by
gunshots in the dark, forcing them to sleep on the floor in
fear.
Spitballs and insults rained on the children as they rode
the bus to a school where life was no easier.
Source: Silver Rights by Connie Curry
46
1974
James Loewen and Charles Sallis
edit Mississippi: Conflict and
Change, a multi-racial, multiethnic textbook that honestly
chronicles Mississippi’s past.
Historians laud it as a “groundbreaking”
study, and it wins various awards, but
Mississippi rejects it for use in the public
schools.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995
by Rebecca Miller Davis
47
1975
Regarding the postwar South, Bettersworth’s Your
Mississippi mentioned neither segregation nor lynching.
Several textbooks refused to call Brown vs. Board of
Education by name, instead referring to it as “the court
decision,” “the integration decision” or “the
desegregation decision.”
All of John Bettersworth’s editions referred to Brown as
“the desegregation decision” and buried the case in
paragraphs that described events of Governor J.P.
Coleman’s term in office, completely omitting it from the
timeline of significant events in Mississippi history.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 19001995 by Rebecca Miller Davis
48
1980
A U.S. District Court rules that Mississippi
students deserve another version of
history, and approve the revisionist
history textbook Mississippi: Conflict and
Change by James W. Loewen and Charles
Sallis.
Source: The Three R’s—Reading, ’Riting, and Race: The Evolution of Race in Mississippi History Textbooks, 1900-1995 by
Rebecca Miller Davis
49
1980s
Algebra Project founded by Robert Parris Moses
(of SNCC) and is implemented in schools in
Jackson, Mississippi.
The Algebra Project “uses mathematics as an
organizing tool to ensure quality public school
education for every child in America. We believe
that every child has a right to a quality
education to succeed in this technology-based
society and to exercise full citizenship.”
Source: The Algebra Project
50
1989
Southern Echo was founded by Hollis Watkins
and Leroy Johnson to build the capacity of
African American communities to form a
network of new, accountable grassroots
community organizations, on an intergenerational model. Southern Echo provided
training, technical and legal assistance. The
primary goal was to empower the community
to impact the formation and implementation
of public policy, with a focus on education.
Source: Southern Echo
51
2009
Senate Bill 2718
(As Sent to Governor)
AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION TO
MAKE CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION A
PART OF THE K-12 CURRICULUM INSTRUCTION IN THE STATE
OF MISSISSIPPI; TO PROVIDE APPROPRIATE GUIDELINES FOR
GRADE LEVEL CLASSROOM LEARNING; TO ESTABLISH A
MISSISSIPPI CIVIL RIGHTS EDUCATION COMMISSION TO
INVENTORY CIVIL RIGHTS EXHIBITS AND RESOURCES AND
COORDINATE CIVIL RIGHTS AWARENESS AND EDUCATION IN
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
Source: Mississippi Legislature
52