Where are brothers in the academy?: schools successful at producing black male graduates

Abstract

Since the first enslaved Africans arrived in America, there has been a dialogue about if, how and what “the Negro” should be taught. This discussion became more important with the emancipation of approximately 3 million slaves, more than 90 percent of whom are believed to have been illiterate. The general sentiment of Southerners about the education of blacks is evident in The Southern Planter and Farmer, where a Virginian named Bebbet Puryear, writing under the pseudonym “Civis,” wrote:I oppose [education for blacks] because it is a policy that is cruelty in the extreme to the Negro himself. It instills in his mind that he is competent to share in the higher walks of life, prompts him to despise those menial pursuits to which his race has been doomed, and invites him to enter into competition with the white man for those tempting prizes that can be won only by a higher order of administrative talent than the negro has ever developed. (Lucas p. 159)

Citation

Vonshay Sharpe, R. and Darity, W.A. (2009), "Where are brothers in the academy?: schools successful at producing black male graduates", Frierson, H.T., Wyche, J.H. and Pearson, W. (Ed.) Black American Males in Higher Education: Research, Programs and Academe (Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 79-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3644(2009)0000007008