Inequality in education dates back from before the birth of our nation, from anti-literacy laws in the 1700s and 1800s to the Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that said education could be “separate but equal.”
Still, though, “there was no equality in the schools,” said Dr. Karsonya Whitehead, founding executive director of The Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice and Loyola University Maryland professor.
“The schools that were predominantly white, mostly white, had all of the resources that they needed, and schools that were predominately Black did not have anything,” she said.
In 1954, the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision marked the end of segregation in public schools, triggering racist backlash across the country.
In this latest part of News4’s Inequality in America series, we’re exploring the journey for equality in education for all Black people, past and present.
We look at why Black women are only 2% of tenured professors, learn how a Maryland teen's Harvard dream came true after affirmative action was struck down, take a look at D.C. Public Schools’ new anti-racist social studies curriculum and more.
“I do believe with my generation and the next generation, we’re really going to be changemakers,” one Howard University education student said.
