Education Backstory

Covering the same time period as chapter 2, but with a focus on Black education in North Carolina, this chapter offers historical context for the academic-focused Catholic school Sarah Keys’s father helped bring to his hometown in 1927. The chapter discusses Freedmen’s schools and the Reconstruction era’s tax-funded graded schools and charity-funded colleges for Black students that used classical academic curricula, followed by a shift to the “industrial” vocational curriculum for Black students championed by Booker T. Washington. That shift coincided with white-power leaders regaining control in the 1890s (often via violence and voter intimidation) and with funding for Black schools declining. There were efforts to oppose and accommodate to those changes, including a new option in rural areas, Rosenwald schools, that brought education to underserved areas. Sarah’s father attended an “industrial” high school in his hometown but experienced classical education after heading to Washington, DC, for more opportunities.