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Desmond Harris
10-28-15
Dr. Carr T/TH 9:40
Book Review: James Anderson’s
Education of Blacks in the South 1860-1935
James Anderson effectively explains everything that was laid out in the
introduction pertaining to Chapter 1 of The Education of Blacks in the South. I
appreciated the way in which he painted a picture and created a lens for the reader to
look through so that they could put the information that he gives in proper context. The
emphasis he places on how determined “ex-slaves” were to learn how to read and write
lays a foundation that doesn’t depict blacks as lazy or shiftless. On the contrary, most of
the chapter helps the audience understand that Blacks in the south were on a mission
to be fully liberated without any chance of letting up. A quote that I believe speaks
volumes in regards to Black people’s determination at the end of the chapter states,
“They believed that the masses could not achieve political and economic independence
or self determination without first being organized, and organization was impossible
without well trained intellectuals--teachers, ministers, politicians, managers,
administrators, and businessmen.” Richard Wright, who Anderson describes as, “one of
the brightest and most influential educators of the post-Reconstruction era, is a prime
example of how much of a threat we were to whites way of life. (29) He understood the
inferiority complex that had been place on blacks and sought to destroy it. This made
Wright and people like him in the black education movement a force that had the power
to dismantle white supremacy from the ground up.
The second and third chapter of The Education of Blacks in the South ties
together in a special way. One topic inevitably affects the other. The second chapter is
titled, The Hampton Model of Normal School Industrial Education, which focuses more
on the efforts of “ex-slaves” to destroy the idea of African people being subordinate in
this society. Within this chapter he says that,” It became increasingly clear to the
advocates of the Hampton model that a powerful cadre of missionary educators and
important black leaders would not accept industrial training as the dominant form of
black education.” (72)
The third chapter, which is titled, Education and Race Problems in the New South gives
