An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North

Horace Mann, John Pierce, and other educational reformers pushed for common schools in the mid-1800s. As these schools developed, so too did the formal and informal segregation of African Americans. Since that time, school integration has been a longstanding debate among African Americans, a centerpiece for Black educational struggles, and something heavily, and at times violently, resisted by whites. Zoë Burkholder’s An African American Dilemma captures the most enduring education argument Black communities have had since the founding of the common schools: whether Blacks should be educated in integrated schools or Black-controlled separate schools. Most research on Black educational history, school segregation, and desegregation focus on the South. Yet, most scholars who study more than one era of northern educational history recognize the enduring argument over separation versus integration. Though fierce debates ensued, demonstrating that Black people were not monolithic, there was little doubt that Black people wanted to be educated and viewed education as a source of freedom; they only disagreed on where and with whom education should occur. An African American Dilemma is a much-needed comprehensive history of the North that covers the 1840s to the present, adding important periodization to this history. This important study focuses on cities, suburbs, and small towns, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. The breadth of locations discussed help substantiate Burkholder’s argument. She contends that school integration and separate, Black-controlled schools were both important political strategies used throughout African American educational history. Furthermore, civil rights efforts were not solely dominated by the push for integration, and groups with differing strategies still worked together to advance Black freedom. Chapter 1 discusses the first period, 1840-1900. Burkholder captures the early debates in several northern communities where common schools and segregation grew simultaneously. Some northern laws called for segregated schools, but by the end of the nineteenth century most shifted from de jure segregation to de facto segregation. Though Blacks fought for integration under both sets of laws, their efforts and court wins were largely ignored. Burkholder effectively displays the debates and activism for integration and separate schools, with accounts in well-studied large