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The State Must Provide: The Definitive History of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education – From Civil War Laws to HBCUs and the Battle for Funding
“A book that both taught me so much and also kept me on the edge of my seat. It is an invaluable text from a supremely talented writer.” —Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed
The definitive history of the pervasiveness of racial inequality in American higher education
America’s colleges and universities have a shameful they have never given Black people a fair chance to succeed. From its inception, our higher education system was not built on equality or accessibility, but on educating—and prioritizing—white students. Black students have always been an afterthought. While governments and private donors funnel money into majority white schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and other institutions that have high enrollments of Black students, are struggling to survive, with state legislatures siphoning away federal funds that are legally owed to these schools. In The State Must Provide, Adam Harris reckons with the history of a higher education system that has systematically excluded Black people from its benefits.
Harris weaves through the legal, social, and political obstacles erected to block equitable education in the United States, studying the Black Americans who fought their way to an education, pivotal Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, and the government’s role in creating and upholding a segregated education system. He explores the role that Civil War–era legislation intended to bring agricultural education to the masses had in creating the HBCUs that have played such a major part in educating Black students when other state and private institutions refused to accept them.
The State Must Provide is the definitive chronicle of higher education’s failed attempts at equality and the long road still in front of us to remedy centuries of racial discrimination—and poses a daring solution to help solve the underfunding of HBCUs. Told through a vivid cast of characters, The State Must Provide examines what happened before and after schools were supposedly integrated in the twentieth century, and why higher education remains broken to this day.
How did a system designed for white students actively sabotage Black achievement for centuries—and what is the path forward?
Systemic Racism in Go beyond the headlines to understand the legal and political architecture of racial inequality, from the Antebellum South to the present day.Historically Black Colleges and Discover the fraught history and vital importance of HBCUs, institutions created in response to segregation that continue to be systematically underfunded.Landmark Legal From Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education and beyond, follow the decades-long legal war waged by Black Americans for the right to an equal education.Civil Rights Meet the vivid cast of characters―students, activists, and educators―who risked everything to fight for educational equity and social justice.
The definitive history of the pervasiveness of racial inequality in American higher education
America’s colleges and universities have a shameful they have never given Black people a fair chance to succeed. From its inception, our higher education system was not built on equality or accessibility, but on educating—and prioritizing—white students. Black students have always been an afterthought. While governments and private donors funnel money into majority white schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and other institutions that have high enrollments of Black students, are struggling to survive, with state legislatures siphoning away federal funds that are legally owed to these schools. In The State Must Provide, Adam Harris reckons with the history of a higher education system that has systematically excluded Black people from its benefits.
Harris weaves through the legal, social, and political obstacles erected to block equitable education in the United States, studying the Black Americans who fought their way to an education, pivotal Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, and the government’s role in creating and upholding a segregated education system. He explores the role that Civil War–era legislation intended to bring agricultural education to the masses had in creating the HBCUs that have played such a major part in educating Black students when other state and private institutions refused to accept them.
The State Must Provide is the definitive chronicle of higher education’s failed attempts at equality and the long road still in front of us to remedy centuries of racial discrimination—and poses a daring solution to help solve the underfunding of HBCUs. Told through a vivid cast of characters, The State Must Provide examines what happened before and after schools were supposedly integrated in the twentieth century, and why higher education remains broken to this day.
How did a system designed for white students actively sabotage Black achievement for centuries—and what is the path forward?
Systemic Racism in Go beyond the headlines to understand the legal and political architecture of racial inequality, from the Antebellum South to the present day.Historically Black Colleges and Discover the fraught history and vital importance of HBCUs, institutions created in response to segregation that continue to be systematically underfunded.Landmark Legal From Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education and beyond, follow the decades-long legal war waged by Black Americans for the right to an equal education.Civil Rights Meet the vivid cast of characters―students, activists, and educators―who risked everything to fight for educational equity and social justice.
272 pages, Paperback
Published August 9, 2022
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May 22, 2022
This was an extensive, well researched detailing of the education opportunities and funding promised, and undelivered to conventional state funded and historically black institutions and in the US. I was surprised (but really shouldn't be) at how often in history people were just very straightforward about their discriminatory goals, their unsupportable logic and their unwillingness to even follow through on the simplest agreement. It just seems like SO much waste of effort to hold some people down when there is so much work involved in running a country or even a state in order. This book was more extensive than I could absorb in a passive manner but would be an excellent resource for those working on educational planning or policy. I really enjoyed the parts about graduate programs too.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review