College Education: Black vs. White Realities — a Book Review

Adam Harris’s The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal — And How To Set Them Right is a most interesting book.

Gandy Hall — Virginia State University

Some quotes can help understand more (below)

In the five years between 1887 and 1893, nine states had passed laws segregating rail- and streetcars. The states had been emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decisions in the civil rights decisions of 1883, when the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a law preventing racial discrimination in public places such as hotels and trains, was unconstitutional. (p.64)

The state was not against funding private colleges, but it was not willing to spend its money on colleges for Black students when it was not forced to do so. Shortly after its own chance at state funding failed, Manual Labor University ceased operations. (p.68–9)

The Rotunda at The University of Virginia

On April 29, 1901, Maryville College in Tennessee acknowledged that it would go along with the state’s newly passed law that barred interracial education. The college had for decades not made distinction between Black and white people in admissions, but the stat was forcing it to do so, and…