Fulfilling the Promise: African American Educators Teach for Democracy in Jim Crow's South.

Abstract

Of all instruments for maintenance of a government, public school is recognized as most powerful. The strength of America has been in transformation of people from other parts of world into American citizens loyal to a new country and to a new way of life full of opportunities for man. The building of this citizenship has been duty primarily of American public school system. It is backbone of our democracy. Let's Be Honest about Democracy, NAACP pamphlet, 1939, p. 12 In 1939, leaders of National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenged nation's school leaders and teachers to make on Founding Fathers promise to educate youth for their future civic roles. Influential African American scholar Charles Wesley echoed NAACP's sentiments in his 1941 essay that encouraged teachers to make democracy the guiding philosophy in our [Negro] through practical as well as theoretical examples. For Wesley and NAACP leaders, one role of schools was to reinforce ideals that citizenship in a democracy should promote the presentation of truth ... freedom of speech, press, pulpit and assembly ... right to strike, right to a fair trial [and] freedom from unlawful search and seizure (Wesley, p.73). Consistent with mainstream civic education discourse of 1930s and 1940s that emphasized need to create school citizens, Black and White educators appeared to promote mutual objectives that would encourage individuals to work together for a common good (Dewey 1909, 1916). Ironically, in same NAACP pamphlet that contained civic education rhetoric, organization also listed as its goals to stop lynching and hate crimes, to secure fair legal representation for African Americans in state courts, and to lobby through judicial system for equal pay and better conditions in segregated public schools (NAACP, 1939, p.8). The NAACP platform also addressed need to create greater public awareness of discrimination and to lessen fears of violent attacks that many African Americans confronted daily in segregated South. Leaders encouraged members, whenever possible, to bring pressure on local communities to stop widespread racially motivated acts of violence (Anderson, 1988; Grant, 1993; Mangum, 1940). Indeed, America's civic community from end of Great Depression through post World War II years was hardly rational or racially neutral in its uneven and unequal treatment of African Americans and other underrepresented groups (Blades & Richardson, 2006; Dunn, 1916). Conventional civic scholarship of era has ignored complexities of a racially segregated society that in theory would have made it difficult, if not illogical, for African American educators to embrace and promote democracy within their communities (Dewey, 1916; Hartmann, 1948; Lazerson, 1978; Wesley, 1942) Given climate of social and political contradictions in United States, how did African American educators teach students about equality, freedom, and justice in a separate and unequal society? This article addresses a basic yet complex question through voices of five African American educators who taught in one Southern state's segregated schools before 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Recollections of their teaching experiences, coupled with historical data, provide context on social studies and civic education that is rarely addressed in historical civic discourse that often interpreted dominant political and social views without regard for perspectives of African Americans and other underrepresented groups (Hertzberg, 1981; Karier, 1978; Saxe, 1991). African American Perspectives on Civic Life Central to study of 20th century African American life and thought is concept of a double consciousness, first articulated by scholar W. …