The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America, 1865-1954 (Teaching for Social Justice) (Teaching for Social Justice Series) [Paperback]

William Watkins' "The White Architects of Black Education" gives an historical and sociological perspective to the progress, or lack of progress, related to the education of African Americans in the United States. This is an excellent resource for those people who have an interest in how the educational system of the mid 19th century through the mid 1950's was crafted in a way to limit the progress of African Americans during those times.
It is interesting to read about how famous Americans such as John D. Rockefellers Senior and Junior, and Andrew Carnegie set up philanthropic foundations to improve the lives of Black Americans. Even though they had what appeared to be benevolent intentions, the reality was that they perpetuated a continued system of racial subservience.
We see not only white men of influence involved, but also conflicts between those African American leaders who differed on plans to educate children. W.E.B. Dubois criticized Booker T. Washington for, what he called, "submission and silence as to civil and political rights." Many felt that Dubois' remarks about Washington would create a diviseness among Black leaders.
Though education for African American children has improved over the past century, this book points out why progress was slow and why we haven't yet reached a truly equal educational system. This part of American history should be a part of general history texts, not separate add-ons to sociological and historical course work.

Mr. Watkins walks us through an historical and turbulent era of education that continues to have ramifications in our present educational system. Watkins journey through the maze of black education exposes the political and socioeconomic influences of the dominnant and affluent white culture of the north. He reveals to the reader the influences of the corporate magnets of the north who wanted cheap labor and subserivent workers. They used their philanthropy and the educational system to imposed their own philosophy of education on the black population;while promoting subserivent lifestyles for those who participated. Mr Watkins is able to convince the reader about the political and economic hold that the corporate world imposes on the black population and the disregard these men had for how the black population wanted their education to progress.
Mr. Watkins continues to show us the need for continued political and socieconomic justice for all people and warns us of the continued influence that corporate America has on all of us.

For years pundits have debated the manipulation of the "Negro problem" in post- civil war America. The period of reconstruction marked the struggle between accomodationist Weltanschauung and intellectual empowerment in the Black community. William Watkins of the University of Illinois, Chicago has illuminated the alliance formed among northern philanthropists and southern racists to propagate the sub-standard education of Blacks. Drawing upon examples of some of the most well known white philanthropists, such as the Rockefeller Family, Thomas Jesse Jones, and William Ogden Watkins weaves a telling tale of seemingly well-meaning charity with a very real and insidious agenda. With striking documentation and thoughtful insight Watkins sheds the veil of altruism and reveals an ill-begotten truce between North, South, and accomodationist Blacks. The culmination of this bargain was the educational marginalization of an entire race drafted to support the burgeoning economic machine in the North and suppress the over-zealous discrimination characteristic of the South. The ideology exposed by Watkins in The White Architects of Black Education defines the scope and sequence of a carefully planned and well-executed contextualization of an entire culture.
The effects of the architecture are still evident in the modern classroom and in society at-large. By providing a minimal education dominant American culture has created an intellectual and societal caste system, which exists today inside and outside of schools. Contrary to the important work of W.E.B. DuBois, who posited the value of education for intellectual empowerment, the White architects designed their philanthropy for the good of everyone involved except the recipients. Subsequently, the entire history of Black education must be re-evaluated and we (education/society) must reconsider our own practices and prejudices. William Watkins's text gives us the resources to chart the appropriate pedagogical and social modifications on the path towards reconciliation.