Course Preview: Brown v. Board at 70: Unfulfilled Promises & Unfinished Activisms for Education Equity
This is the public version of my first course as Visiting Assistant Professor of the Writing Program for Haverford College. As I’m still getting my legs under me, this will be the public form of engaging with it. While the Writing Program seminars primarily focus on preparing students to succeed as writers with academic communities, their aims align with several broader goals of a liberal education: to help students become more intellectually curious, more closely engaged in the interpretation of texts and cultures, more aware of how scholarly conversations work, more independent and articulate in expressing their own ideas. That is to say, there’s much more to be explored about Brown v. Board that won’t be discussed here.
Overview:
The landmark victory of Brown v. Board (1954) was popularly understood to symbolize the ability of all students, particularly Black students, to have access to high-quality schooling and shatter the grip of segregation in our schools and public institutions. Seventy years after Brown, public schools across the country are still deeply segregated and unequal. As R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy recently offered, “The segregation that was meant to be uprooted with the Brown decision not only persisted, but it has grown, and today, we stand at a critical juncture — the promise of education as opportunity that has existed for more than 100 years is on the verge of being no more.”
In this writing seminar, we will explore 19th, 20th, and 21st century perspectives emerging from Black-led education organizing in the wake of the 70th Anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision to inform how we understand the purpose of education in our own lives and as a social anchor. Through three acts, we will consider: (1) Black education antecedents and experiments that took place through Reconstruction up until the dawn of Brown v. Board; (2) a multidimensional exploration of Brown v. Board I (1954) and II (1955) decisions; and (3) contemporary realities of U.S. public education for Black communities, including ongoing grassroots experiments and interventions needed to bring about an inclusive, equitable, and relevant education.
Course readings will include anchor texts for each act, combined with supplemental articles, essays, and multimedia artifacts. Assignments will involve essays that build on personal experiences in education toward defining dimensions of equity and concluding with arguments for how a proposed intervention could expand equity and inclusiveness in U.S. schools. [Counts towards the concentration in African and Africana Studies.]
Core Texts:
- Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Univ of North Carolina Press. [Paperback ISBN: 978–0–8078–4221–8]
- Walker, V. S. (2018). The lost education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the hidden heroes who fought for justice in schools. The New Press. [Paperback ISBN: 978–1–62097–602–9]
- Love, B. L. (2023). Punished for dreaming: How school reform harms Black children and how we heal. St. Martin’s Press. [Hardcover ISBN: 978–1250280381]
Supplemental Texts:
- Selections from: Givens, J. R. (2021). Fugitive pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the art of Black teaching. Harvard University Press.
- Selections from: Williams, H. A. (2009). Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom. Univ of North Carolina Press.
- Selections from: Fenwick, L. T. (2022). Jim Crow’s pink slip: the untold story of black principal and teacher leadership. Harvard Education Press.
- Bell Jr, D. A. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard law review, 518–533.
- [For Research Roundtable] White Paper Series, Meeting the Promise of Brown v. Board: 70 Years Later, Learning Policy Institute & National Coalition of Education Equity, https://www.ncoee.org/whitepapers
- Selections from: Royal, C. (2022). Not paved for us: Black educators and public school reform in Philadelphia. Harvard Education Press.
Assignments
Overall, the Writing Seminar consists of three essays, which build on previous knowledge into activating student-led self-directed research.
Essay 1: Personal Experience Essay
Your first essay for this class is an opportunity to explore and contextualize how your own personal education experiences inform how you grasp the embedded purpose(s) of public education.
Noting your own personal experiences in education up until this present moment, what would you sense as the guiding purpose of public education “as it is” and “as it ought to be”? How does it actually exist in practice? What would you claim as the strongest ideals of what a rich public education experience creates for society?
For this 3–4-page assignment, you will draw at least one example from our anchor text (Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935) to be utilized within your essay. Your task for this essay is to showcase your own voice, insights, and understandings, so you are not to draw on any outside sources other than the readings we’ve done for class. The objective here is to provide your reader with insight into how you define your relationship to the unfulfilled aims and unfinished activisms necessary to improve public education for everyone.
Essay 2: Close Reading Essay
Your second essay for this course, extending from your own insights into a further close reading of texts, builds on our dialogue and engagement with the history of Black education in this country:
Drawing on examples from the texts we’ve engaged so far, establish an argument for the objective definition of “equity and inclusion”? How have actors and researchers in the texts we’ve explored attended to how it is cultivated, how it is measured? What are the social outcomes from the public pursuit of an “equitable and inclusive” education?
Your task for this essay is to showcase your own voice, insights, and understandings, so you are not to draw on any outside sources other than the readings we’ve done for class. The objective here is to provide your reader with insight into how you define equity and inclusion in response to the histories and approaches that we’ve engaged so far. Strive to integrate 2–3 examples from the course readings.
Essay 3: Argumentative Essay w/ Supplemental Sources
Your final essay for this course is an opportunity to build on your definition of equity and inclusion to synthesize an intervention opportunity for present-day U.S. public education:
Building on course texts and additional self-directed research, establish a persuasive argument for an educational policy or classroom practice intervention that could improve equity and inclusion in U.S. schools. Tell us of some of the historical challenges you are seeking to address, and acknowledge what contemporary forces surrounding the issue may impede progress.
Your task for this essay is to step into the “unfinished” work of producing deeply equitable and inclusive learning environments reinforced by policy. The objective here is to provide your reader with a persuasive argument for how an intervention opportunity you offer, backed by research, can push us further on the road to meaningful, deep equity and inclusion, with all deliberate speed.*
There’s obviously more to this course in practice, regarding the teaching of writing. I feel less confident in that part, as I’m still learning how to be effective there. But for everyone who asked, here’s my offering.
