“Integrated Out of Existence”: African American Debates over School Integration versus Separation at the Bordentown School in New Jersey, 1886–1955

Book Review of “Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works”

“…Page 20 notes: “So threatened were some whites by school integration that they were willing to kill.” Research on the social-emotional burdens often experienced by Black children in integrated schools suggests the burdens of integration borne by descendants of enslaved Americans did not end with the sacrifices of the Little Rock Nine in 1957 or Dwania Kyles and the other twelve students who integrated the schools in Memphis in 1973. In fact, this ongoing burden is likely the impetus for Black scholars and educators (before and after the Brown decision) wondering whether integration would be (or was) worth the price Blacks would continue having to pay (DuBois, 1935; Burkholder, 2016; Walker, 2018).…”

Pedagogical Progressivism and Black Education: A Historiographical Review, 1880–1957

“…When it was founded in the 1880s, the school originally offered an academic curriculum, but by the 1910s it began to incorporate more industrial offerings. To that end, the New Jersey commissioner of education hired William R. Valentine as principal of the school, a man Burkholder (2017) identified as a “black progressive educator and Harvard University graduate” (p. 51). Valentine, formerly the principal of PS 26 in Indianapolis, had been featured in John and Evelyn Dewey’s Schools of To-morrow (1915), published the same year that Valentine was hired at Bordentown.…”

“…Du Bois and subsequent historians (Goddard, 2019; Jordan, 2017; Wright, 1941). According to Burkholder (2017), Valentine “believed that cultivating a strong work ethic and sense of personal responsibility was every bit as important as training in industry and academics,” (p. 55) and Goddard (2019) considered Bordentown to be the realization of the kind of industrial/academic progressive curriculum outlined by Dewey. However, by the 1940s, civil rights leaders began to criticize Bordentown as an outdated, segregated, Southern-style industrial school that destined Black youth to a second-class citizenship.…”

Racial Integration, White Appropriation, and School Choice: The Demise of the Colored Schools of Late Nineteenth Century Brooklyn

“…10 Historical scholarship on school desegregation pre-Brown is far more limited, especially so for the nineteenth century, but here, too, scholars have documented a combination of white resistance and the tolls paid by black communities, even as many black parents and civic leaders fought for equal access to neighborhood schools. 11 Research on both eras has found evidence of Derrick Bell's "interest convergence" thesis-the notion that when school desegregation did occur in the United States, it was only because the interests of black communities "converged" with those of white policymakers. 12 In the context of the late-nineteenth century, when northern school desegregation largely occurred through legislative action rather than judicial decisions, Davison Douglas argues that while antisegregation statutes adopted by white lawmakers may have reflected some "Reconstruction-era racial idealism," other concerns-such as "a desire to capture black votes in closely contested elections, and the high costs of dual schools"often played a role as well.…”