Book Review: The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America (1865-1954) By William H. Watkins

By Naji Mujahid,Spring 2009

In William Watkins work, The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America (1865-1954), he does a superb job in giving a history of how numerous forces emrged during reconstruction to use the education of Blacks as a means to keep Blacks in their place. That is to say, after the civil war, emancipation and in the midst of the industrial revolution a very volatile situation had developed and the answer to the “negro question” was a big key to the success of the new society.

The South still remained an agrarian economy and the North was becoming an industrial one. Newly freed Blacks were still needed as labor force, but how they would be absorbed into the society and how the Northern and Southern economies would coeexist was a problem. Though they were free, they had to remain in their place, race relations had to stay the same and any changes would have to be incremental and gradual. Somewhat of a carrot on a stick.

The book has to parts, the first, Historical Context does just that and the second, Architects of Accomodation, is biographical in that it outlines the key players and families that made this accomodation possible. The ideologues, philanthropists, and businessmen.

In the introduction, Watkins begins by saying:

“education can be used to oppress and to Liberate... American's colonization of Blacks employed the textbook as often as the bullet.... Colonial education in America was designed to control, pacify, and socialize subject people. The education of Black Americans has always been inextricably connected to state politics and the labor market.”

Further more he says that:

“The establishment of Black Education was much more than teaching the ABCs to little children of color. It was a political proposition. Black education helped define and forge race relations that shaped the entire 20th century and beyond.”

From here he goes into part one and talks about two subpoints, 'Toward a political sociology of Black Eduaction and “scientific” racism'. The first subpoint elaborates on how the development of ideology, specifically an ideology that would facilitate the growth, preservation, and maintenance of the current socio-economic establishment. An ideology of accomodation, one that would be accepted by all (or at least most), the powerful and the poweless, but would perpetuate that relationship; that would be essential to the interests of the rich and oppressive few and inimical to the poor and oppressed masses (particularly Blacks). It was important that these ideas would appear “natural, ordained, and organic”.

Furthermore he discusses the 'Charity Movement', spearheaded by missionary societies, and showed that though the purveyors of this movement appeared to be benefactors they were actually a buffer between the rich and the poor. Slavery and other economic institutions of the time had accumulated so muc wealth and further created such a disparity of wealth that in order to keep the “new urgan indigents” from threatening the “fragile industrial democracy”, their basic needs would have to be met. However, as they fed the needs of the poor, they also fed them an ideology that would make them compliant and accepting of their poverty and the socio-economic system that created the disparity. Thus, neutralizing the “threat” of rebellion, insurrection, uprising, etc.

Part and parcel the the 'Charity Movement' was the rise of corporate philanthropy or, what the author calls, 'Race Philanthropy'. Lots of money was spent on developing institutions for Blacks that would assimilate them into society and anwer the “negro question”.

“Resolving the negro question meant Blacks could not be totally frozen out of social participation. They would have to be politically socialized, given hope, and given at least minimal acces to survival. A compradore or middle class, as advocated by Booker T. Washington, of Black entrepreneurs, clergy, clerks, and teachers was indispensable to the new formula.”

However, as this formula called for a small, compliant, and “successful” middle class to be another buffer,

“Simultaneously, capitalist labor economics required an abundance of semi-feudal sharecropper labor alongside cheap semi-skilled and skilled industrial labor. American industrialization would be built on the backs of Black labor”.

It is interesting to note that the many of the people and entities that capitalized off off the past and present social strification were and continue to be some of the main philanthropists.

“Scientific” racism was simply a series of theories and ideas (inluding eugenics) that, cloaked in science, legitimized racism and therefore the perceived natural order, a kind of 'Social Darwinism'. One key player in this was Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, who the author refers to as the “undeniable founder” of Eugenics. The author further states that,

“It was felt that the naturally inferior Black must always occupy a socially subservient position... “scientific” racism provided a foundation for both institutional and attitudinal racism in America.”

Part two of the book, as mentioned, provides several biographical sketches of the key performers in this theater. Including, General Samual Chapman Armstrong, Professor Franklin H. Giddings, the Phelps-Stokes Family, Thomas Jesse Jones, the Rockefeller Family, Robert Curtis Ogden & William Henry Baldwin, and J.L.M. Curry. He clearly shows, how the above mentioned people influenced and were very much architects of Black education and by extension the emerging society. An influence that has perpetuated itself up to this very day. He also acknowledges the complicity of the State in this process and the significant role that the Federal government played, including the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau

Watkins conclusion is more of a reflection. He acknowledges that in the beginning he sought to tale the tale of “evil men” with equally evil intentions. In the end though, he admits that the players in this game, mentioned and unmentioned, while certainly racist, were nation-buiders. He says that coming out of the Civil War and into reconstruction America was up for grabs and they grabbed it. They grabbed it and shaped it.

“They didn't think in terms of permanent friends and permanent enemies, only permanent interests... Never straying from racial supremacy, they were attempting to structure a society that could function. These architects were men of expediency.... The wed democracy to plutocracy... constitutional freedom with social subservience.... America needed class peace and race peace to get beyond its national adolescence and allow corporate industrialization to expand.... Blacks needed to be convinced that their lot was improving.”