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Since we are kissing another Black History Month goodbye, and there have been so many posts about the importance of Black educators, I thought I'd offer a few historical points I gathered from Dr. Vannessa Siddle-Walker and old news stories.

In 1954 82,000 Black teachers taught 2 million Black children.

In the 11 years immediately following Brown, more than 38,000 Black teachers and administrators in 17 Southern and border states lost their jobs.

90% of Black principals lost their jobs in 11 Southern states.

Some of the Black teachers that kept their jobs were made to call the parents of every white student and ask for permission to teach their children.

Obviously, White teachers did not have to do this with Black parents.

One narrative about Black schools says their teachers were inferior. This is a hot lie.

NEA data shows that 85% of nonwhite teachers had college degrees, compared with 75% of white teachers.

Black students majoring in education dropped by 66% between 1975 and 1985.

The Brown family said that their Black school educators were effective and caring.

Black teachers were increasing the literacy rate, college-going rate, and raising test scores. And, the dropout rate declined.

We never recovered the Black educational capital lost post-Brown.

According to Dr. Siddle-Walker, pre-Brown Black teachers engaged "interpersonal caring" with more one-on-one mentoring, and they carried a message of "you can do whatever you want to do" and "I can help you."

She says these schools also had...

...institutional caring, which was characterized by a caring ethos, civic education, democratic participation, supplemental teaching of history, and engagement with community role models.

These teachers were preparing students to engage in a cold world.

Pre-Brown Black teachers sought to deconstruct the negative messages student got from the broader society, and to replace those messages with healthy ones.

And, they were in partnership with parents, each accepting their roles in the success of Black children.

For example...

The parental role included advocating for the things that teachers couldn't, participating in the PTA and assemblies, and providing money. According to Dr. Siddle-Walker, parents and teachers shared a "collective model" of education that was good for all children.

The teacher's role included parenting the children at school by giving them what parents couldn't. They understood it was important to meet people at their cultural location.
Black teachers went into the community, met with families and explicitly told parents what they needed.

Finally, these teachers who contemporary pop-historians assume were inferior had sophisticated systems of sharing information. They held state, regional, and local meetings to discuss professional issues, and, they were in ongoing dialogue with professors in higher ed.

Those who don't know their history are doomed to never repeat the best parts of it.

#HowAreTheChildren #WhereAreOurTeachers