Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas
Amilcar Shabazz
(Author)
Description
As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is important to consider the historical struggles that led to this groundbreaking decision. Four years earlier in Texas, the Sweatt v. Painter decision allowed blacks access to the University of Texas's law school for the first time. Amilcar Shabazz shows that the development of black higher education in Texas--which has historically had one of the largest state college and university systems in the South--played a pivotal role in the challenge to Jim Crow education.Shabazz begins with the creation of the Texas University Movement in the 1880s to lobby for equal access to the full range of graduate and professional education through a first-class university for African Americans. He traces the philosophical, legal, and grassroots components of the later campaign to open all Texas colleges and universities to black students, showing the complex range of strategies and the diversity of ideology and methodology on the part of black activists and intellectuals working to promote educational equality. Shabazz credits the efforts of blacks who fought for change by demanding better resources for segregated black colleges in the years before Brown, showing how crucial groundwork for nationwide desegregation was laid in the state of Texas.
Product Details
Price
$51.75
Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Publish Date
January 30, 2004
Pages
301
Dimensions
6.22 X 9.4 X 0.75 inches | 1.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780807855058
BISAC Categories:
About the Author
Amilcar Shabazz is a professor in the department of American studies and director of the African American studies program at the University of Alabama. He is coeditor of "The Forty Acres Documents: What Did the United States Really Promise the People Freed from Slavery?"
Reviews
"Exhibits an engaging, lively writing style. . . . The students and local leaders in this tradition of sacrifice are at the heart of this excellent historical work."
-- "American Historical Review"
-- "American Historical Review"