Context

Education in the United States leading up to the end of direct enslavement was two pronged: none or not of quality reflective of the level of science in the larger society.   In both cases, whites did every thing possible to keep Black populations uneducated or much less educated relative to the most uneducated elements of the white population.  Blacks were trained to do manual/slave labor and not think; whites were being trained for mechanized machine based labor which required much more thought and know how.

In the south, academic education for enslaved Africans was absolutely not allowed.  In the north, there were a few religious schools that mis-educated Blacks by teaching them white supremacy/fear/obedience, but did teach elementary reading, writing and arithmetic.  The larger cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore had small academies and schools of higher learning.   Generally, higher education was permitted for very few, and even then there were often protests and threats from alumni and other financial supporters to withdraw funds.

An exception to the exclusionary policy toward Blacks was Oberlin University, which made it official policy in 1834-35 to have "free admission of all colored students on equal terms with whites." In 1853 the first school for the education of Black males, excluding Black women, was founded by Presbyterians in Pennsylvania. Black women were not allowed any formal education, they were not allowed to vote even when a few Black men were allowed to vote after the Civil War.

After the Civil War by 1865 the country was in shambles, especially in the south.  Economic conditions worsened for Black populations for nearly two decades; the Depression of 1873 lasted until 1881. It was devastating to white workers, North and South; it was worst than slavery for many of the African Americans who thought they had been freed from slavery.  Vagrancy laws and Black codes were passed in the north and south with the purpose of controlling Black labor, and stopping the organizing of the unemployed.  The Freedmen's Bureau was an agency in the South meant to advocate for newly freed Blacks in the transition from slavery to freedom.

The Bureau was charged with establishing schools, dividing the confiscated land of Confederate planters, supervising contracts between Black freedmen and their landlords, and mediating other disputes.  In fact, it was essentially an agency to get ex-slaves back to semi-slave agricultural work on terms favorable to landlords. Their terms were cheap, manual, dumbed, obedient hard labor for little or nothing in return.  Even one of Reconstruction's proudest achievements--the creation from scratch of public-school systems for Blacks, supported by teacher-training academies and colleges supported by northern philanthropy were mere tools for the fashioning of Black docility and decorum.  On the other hand the northern capitalists and their government rebuilt the south and resurrected the southern slavemaster class as a new middle man landlord class for the absentee northern mortgage holders, and loan granters on Wall Street. 

Not a single Confederate official or officer served a prison sentence-except for Jefferson Davis, who served a two-year sentence.  The war criminals like Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate officer who orchestrated the worst atrocity of the Civil War when more than 278 Black soldiers attempting to surrender at Fort Pillow in Tennessee were massacred, walked free. In the months after the defeat of the South, Forrest went on to organize the Ku Klux Klan who would lynch, burn, mutilate, castrate, butcher, hang, rape, and mass murder thousands of Blacks. 

Johnson also moved to restore land rights to Southerners-including rescinding Sherman's order granting land tracts to freed enslaved Africans. Johnson also gave permission for planters to recoup their land on the Sea Islands of both Georgia and South Carolina.  The African population was reduced to begging for work from their former enslavers. 

In sum, the Freedmen's Bureau, formally established cheaply funded school which taught Blacks, mainly men, how to read, write, and elementary mathematics.  In addition, some northern churches donated money and materials for elementary education.  When the north ad the south had finished reconstructing their country, they ended the Freedmen's Bureau, ended spending on education for Black children and began the policy of segregated education for Blacks which was organized around preachers, churches, missionary societies, and other benevolent groups as opposed to scientifically trained teachers, professors, educational professionals, and applied engineers.  Whites would not allow Blacks into their high schools and colleges so, agricultural and mechanical schools were set up to keep Blacks latched to the obsolete forms of agricultural/manual labor. 

In the north quotas limiting the number of Blacks to be admitted were set near one or two.  Therefore if only a few were allowed in only a few could graduate.  White colleges for centuries kept Black folk from higher education.  Black colleges emerged as Jim Crow/segregated and under funded schools of last resort for Black students.  None were engineering schools, none taught higher mathematics, none, except perhaps Tuskegee, and later Howard University taught elements of the science with lab based experimentation and small funded research projects.   Overall, they generally did an excellent job with what they had been given because of discrimination, racism, and the exclusion those activities cause.  In fact, most of the Black college graduates who became professionals well into the late 1980's graduated from Black colleges.

Black Colleges of the 19^th Century:

(religion/segregation education) minus modern scientific foundations:

Today, Pre-college education is still segregated in most cases.  The whites have the best funded schools, the best technologies, the best scientific curricula and lab research materials, the best educational opportunities for a technical education in college manufacturing, agriculture, mining, architecture, construction, and mathematical research. 

Blacks are systematically under-prepared for those fields in elementary school, and thus are unable to catch up later in high school.  A major positive trend as evolved over the past 20 years.  Black populations go back to school in record numbers after 18 years of age. 

Engineering is important because you actually learn how to apply scientific knowledge to solving real world problems:  you can design and build your own cars, planes, houses, buildings, computers, phones, monitors, flat screen tvs, shoes, hats, printers, ipods, heaters, water treatment plants, mass produced foods, etc.  Without the special preparation in engineering you are left with mysticism, speculation, blind faith, and just plain old guesswork and talking about things.  The whites (ruling class) systematically have kept Blacks away from science/engineering in every single area of American educational preparation.  Look at a comparison of the terminal degrees completed in the area of science over the past 20 years.  African Americans have less percentage of the science degrees, took longer to receive their degrees, and have fewer degrees correlated with their population of 13.2% of the national population.

Black PhD Grads in 1987: 787

Black PhD Grads in 2004: 1869

Black PhD Grads in 2007: 1571

Black PhDs awarded in Mathematics in 2007: 13

PhDs awarded in Astronomy in 2007: 76

Black PhDs awarded in Astronomy in 2007: 1

PhDs awarded in Physics in 2007: 1300+

PhDs awarded in the Earth Sciences in 2007: 387

Black PhDs awarded in the Earth Sciences in 2007: 3

PhDs awarded in Ocean & Marine Sciences in 2007: 201

PhDs awarded in Mathematics in 2007: 1301

Black PhDs awarded in Physics in 2007: 7

Black PhDs awarded in Ocean & Marine Sciences in 2005: 0

PhDs awarded in Biological Sciences in 2007: 6714

Black PhDs awarded in Biological Sciences in 2007: 136

Percentage of US Population that is Black: 13.2

Percentage of new PhD Grads that is Black: 5.7

Percentage of new PhD Grads in 1975 that were Black women: 41.3

Percentage of new PhD Grads in 2005 that were Black women: 67.9

Percentage of all new Black PhDs that are in Education: 37.5

Percentage of all new white PhDs that are in Education: 18.8

Percentage of all new Black PhDs that are in the Sciences: 4.7

Percentage of all new white PhDs that are in the Sciences: 13.5

Percentage of new Black PhDs that are in Engineering: 1.1

Average age of a Black Ph.D. recipient in 2007: 37.2

Average age of a white Ph.D. recipient in 2007: 33.1

Number of PhDs awarded in 55 other scientific fields 2007: 2361

Number of Black PhDs awarded in 55 other scientific fields 2007: 1

It is a testament to the will of the Blacks who have become scientists, engineers, mathematicians, manufacturing specialists, architects, construction engineers, inventors, doctors lawyers, and other technically trained professionals given the systematic effort established to keep them in liberal arts, dancing, singing, praying, pleading, arguing, debating and just talking about things that they are kept from learning how to do.    Away from a scientific/engineering education is where the largest aspect of Black education has been channeled by the rule white race, class, and culture.  Simply put, we cannot rebuild our civilizations without modern science, engineering, and technology.  This is the basis of our dependence, and second class treatment.  With modernity we can build our own means of living.  Without it we are servants/victims in perpetual slavery to anyone who knows how and what to do with the earth's resources. 

The economic conditions that served as the context within which African-centered movement emerged have changed substantially in the past thirty years.  The development of computer automated technologies-and their application to production-coupled with the globalization of goods and services production is fundamentally redefining work, the workplace, and the workforce.  High school education does not equal a job today.  College education does not equal being able to make a living. 

1. The majority of working class Americans live their lives in perpetual debt, facing foreclosures, auctions, evictions, car repossessions, bankruptcy, health care bills, and threat of layoffs and unemployment. Most of them think that because they have a 30 year loan on a house, they own it. When they lose their job, cannot meet the house payments, they are out on the street in six months after foreclosure; whereas, the renter is out after three months. Millions are being evicted and foreclosed. Credit rating does not matter now. If you have no job you face not having food, housing, transportation, health care, clothing, education, heating, water, gas, electricity, or the ability to make purchases. An education, a college/university degree is suppose to give them a better opportunity to earn a living. Today, this is no longer a certainty.

2. Over 76 million Americans are without adequate health care, or are with out health-care all together; millions more are in useless HMO's which only pay for what they decide is cheapest for them. Nearly 1,000,000 people in the USA have disabilities and have been waiting for Social Security benefits for over a year. Because of under-funding, layoffs, and cut backs there are not enough personnel to file documents. The system is sick, you will never cure it with a ballot pull.  When your livelihood is tied to a capitalist who must make a profit by using globalism/global labor markets, you will not be able to survive because workers in other countries are paid much less.  The capitalist will go wherever they can get the cheapest labor and the best rate of profit.  Nothing can ever be the same again.  Even the purpose of education must change for Black children and adults otherwise many will be left in the streets, homeless, hungry, and without an ability to earn a living.   

3. Study this moment carefully.  Understand how schools are funded: with tax dollars.  When workers do not have jobs, government revenues contract, government expenditures must contract, budgets are cut, spending is channeled to fund capitalist profit-making ventures.  Black schools are closed, children are warehoused, prisons are primed and readied for loads of property crimes.  The most severe recession in the postwar era was from November 1973 to March 1975, exacerbated by an Arab oil embargo. The present economic crisis in 2008 has already pasted that recession based on the repossessions, foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, debt, credit contraction, dollar devaluation, stagflation, oil price increases (above $100.00 per gallon), dollar devaluation, and stockmarket crises. For the fourth straight month the stocks have showed huge losses.

4. In this 18 month period, inflation has begun to increase, stocks are falling consistently losing value monthly. This period will double in severity in the months to come.

5. For Black people, this is the worst recession since the Great Depression, with double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates and double-digit inflation, with the basic cost of living, food and energy rising high, the housing market going from boom to bust, real estate and home construction markets collapsed, loan defaults and foreclosures proliferated, and damage has continued to spread through the nation's financial system. Families are just coming undone. Any talk of education is tied to trying to get training to get a job, a job that is being shipped to India, Iraq, China, Europe and now even Russia.  Stop and think this through.  Do not make this easy for them.  Prepare to organize weekend and night schools.

6. The hardest-hit occupations in terms of recent job losses include real estate brokers, financial services sales agents, loan counselors and public relations specialists, education, retail, construction, services, manufacturing, factory labor, and government services, recent government figures show.

7. The double blow of a gutted housing market and oil that topped $119 a barrel has sunk the world's largest economy into a deep recession. Consumer spending, which drives almost all fundamental economic output, has slowed dramatically in recent months, as was evident in the drop in holiday retail sales reported by the government. More people are having trouble paying their bills. Most are using credit cards to stay afloat. That credit will be called in. Banks have had to write off trillions of dollars for credit card defaults, car repossessions, foreclosed houses, bankruptcies, etc.

8. This outright contraction of economic activity and employment will last for years. Consumers who are essentially 66% of the financial formula for the commodity getting bought, will continue to cut spending, with results for businesses, retailers, industries, and corporations being a decline in profits and a move to cut spending by laying off workers and withdrawing advertising monies. Housing prices, which have fallen an average of 11.3 percent nationwide and as much as 65 percent in some markets since peaking in 2005, will continue to drop for years.

9. Black unemployment could climb another 12-17 percentage points to 40 percent, which would be the highest in 70 years and leave another 9-13million working class African Americans out of work. This is essentially the core of Black families in the United States.  Black women are being hit the hardest because they head up 80% of Black families---the care fore the children in most cases.  They are at the epi-center of this economic crisis.  Stocks will continue to drop; foreclosures are tied to jobs and the ability to pay a mortgage, so they too will continue to increase.  Inflation is simple: prices will continue to rise because oil is used in over 80% of the international economy's industries.  Oil is now over $100.00 per barrel; as it increase so will the price of everything it is used to produce.

10. In Cleveland, and Detroit, epicenters of the foreclosure crisis, the cities have 6 out of top 10 zip codes for foreclosures in the nation. Cleveland has demolished 1,000 abandoned homes in the past year that had become targets for vandals, in order to save money on policing those neighborhoods. Most of those homes had been financed with subprime mortgages.

11. Small businesses are also feeling repercussions and reporting that conditions are soft as customers cut back. Galleries, specialty shops,shoe stores, and restaurants have closed because shoppers and tourists are spending less.

12. Another surprise: McDonald's Corp., typically a winner in a downturn with its low-priced restaurants, show sale sat their lowest level in at least seven years.

13. The nation's banks and brokerages will not recover from heavy losses incurred in the collapse of the subprime and now the prime mortgage market. The Consumer confidence sank to the lowest level in at least seven years amid growing worries about jobs, energy bills and home foreclosures after the unemployment rate rose to new highs in the Black community. This will result in a prolonged credit contraction which will force millions of would-be buyers out of the market. As the economy teeters on the brink of collapse, next the dollar will go into freefall as global investors lose confidence in the U.S. economy. 

14. As conditions worsen, with food and fuel cost rising, African Americans and others will try to use credit cards to pay for basic essentials, including their rent. That credit will be called in. Balances surged through last fall 2007 well into the trillions, Federal Reserve figures show.

The downturn also is taking a toll on city governments because revenue from property taxes will decline along with home values, thus forcing governments to cut city services, layoff workers, cut shifts, reduce spending and close facilities such as hospitals, clinics, schools, recreation centers, police stations, fire stations, and government social service programs.

As schools are closed, Black people must organize their won schools, but this time they must be applied math, applied science, applied engineering---not just discussion about history, religion and how others have victimized us.  We must take r of our lives at the very foundations of production of the necessities of life and living. 

Need for Applied, Critical Technical Education 

Today, without critical thinking, applied technological education, applied science, applied engineering, and applied mathematics it will be difficult for anyone to make a life anywhere in the world without being dependent on a rapidly degenerating national and international economy.

The development of technologies used in the workplace (in production) that initially assisted workers carry out their tasks into technologies now replace workers.  Furthermore, multinational corporations through their global policy organizations and trade agreements have forged a new global labor force; new because now $6.00/hr low-end service workers in Detroit are in direct competition with $2.50/hr workers in China.  And white collar workers, including engineers, accountants, etc. who may have earned as high as $13-$30.00/hr. in the United States are pit against $3-$6.00/hr. workers in India, Pakistan and Ireland. 

The impact of these shifts on Black people in the United States has been both direct and indirect.  The pursuit of cheaper production costs through automation and relocation puts the most expendable people out of work, which has been us; when people do not work, they do not pay taxes (like payroll) and their ability to pay bills is compromised; when people do not pay taxes, the local, state, and federal governmental resources are reduced; when bills are not paid, people are cold, go hungry, are put out of their homes, lose their cars, have their lights cut off, have their water cut off, ultimately ending up in the streets.  Then community institutions close; when government tax revenue is reduced, jobs and services are cut, including and especially those areas that are not generating tax revenue.  This means that education, waste management, recreational facilities, public transportation, libraries, and emergency services loose money, necessitating further lay offs, service reductions, and closures.  Schools in the Black community are first to close.   

What do these shifts mean for the education of Black people now and into the future?  An examination of our role in this country since our massive kidnapping, transcontinental transportation, and enslavement shows that the appropriation of our labor has held our collective place.  Yet in a moment that no longer needs labor (as it did in the past), Black people must consider what this means and what it can mean in the future.  As educators, we have a distinct advantage in defining future possibilities because we play a key role in the cultivation of young hearts and minds.  It is as a result of the collective efforts of our best minds, hearts, and hands that we forge curricula, learning environments, and opportunities for our young people to develop, strengthen, and hone the skills necessary to carry out the great work bequeathed them (their generation) by us (our generation).

Purpose of Education

It is incumbent upon our generation to produce a qualitatively new group of people; a group that benefits from our having admitted and corrected the mistakes we made, as well as identified important lessons we have learned from past efforts.  We must learn how to do thing, to make things, to manufacture, to produce, to create, to plan, to build.  The purpose of education must be:

Guiding Philosophy

At the foundation of all educational systems lay a philosophy[1] that reflects the material conditions of a particular race, class, gender, generation, culture, ethnicity, and psychology.  The philosophical tenets of an African-centered philosophy include: