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 its board decided that it would not b worth the $50 daily fine (the equivalent of $1,518 in 2021 dollars) to continue educating students together. (p.71)

In 1947, 75000 Black students were enrolled in higher education out of more than 2,300,000 students at American’s colleges. “Of these, approximately 85 percent were enrolled in 105 segregated institutions,” the report said. (p.113)

On January 21, 1948, five days before the scheduled beginning of midyear enrollment at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, the state regents for higher education in Oklahoma moved to do just that: they planned to establish the Langston University School of Law. It would be a law school located in the state capitol and be specifically designed for Black students. The government would turn several of the committee rooms on the fourth floor of the capitol building into classrooms…