African Equity

In this provocative appraisal of desegregation in South Carolina, R. Scott Baker contends that half a century after the Brown decision we still know surprisingly little about the new system of public education that replaced segregated caste arrangements in the South. Much has been written about the most dramatic battles for black access to southern schools, but Baker examines the rational and durable evasions that authorities institutionalized in response to African American demands for educational opportunity.

A case study of southern evasions, Paradoxes of Desegregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926–1972 documents the new educational order that grew out of decades of conflict between African American civil rights activists and South Carolina’s political leadership. Baker expands the conventional scholarly perspective, which has focused almost exclusively on the NAACP, and explores activism on a local level to desegregate schools, colleges, and universities. During the 1940s, Baker shows, a combination of black activism and NAACP litigation forced state officials to increase funding for black education. This early phase of the struggle in turn accelerated the development of institutions that cultivated a new generation of grass roots leaders.

Challenging Michael J. Klarman’s backlash thesis, Baker demonstrates that white resistance to integration did not commence or crystallize after Brown. Instead, beginning in the 1940s, authorities in South Carolina institutionalized an exclusionary system of standardized testing that, according to Baker, exploited African Americans’ educational disadvantages, limited access to white schools, and confined black South Carolinians to separate institutions. As massive resistance to desegregation collapsed in the late 1950s, officials in other southern states followed South Carolina’s lead, adopting testing policies that continue to govern the region’s educational system.

Paradoxes of Desegregation brings much needed historical perspective to contemporary debates about the landmark federal education law, No Child Left Behind. Baker analyzes decades of historical evidence related to high-stakes testing and concludes that desegregation, while a triumph for advantaged blacks, has paradoxically been a tragedy for most African Americans.

Paradoxes of Desegregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926-1972

Twentieth century South African history and politics have been marked by intense conflict. This conflict still manifests itself on racial and class lines within the country. In this text, Dr Tsoaledi Daniel Thobejane is trying to bring about a Black perspective on the writing and narration of what led to the formation of what can be referred to as contemporary South Africa. The text is biographical and historical. He is looking at black resistance politics in south Africa an and also does a brief overview of international politics as compared to South Africa. As a South African who grew up in township and living in the United States, Thobejane feels bound to give a personal view of international relations, especially with the role of America under President George Bush (Jnr) in the Middle East.

The Fight for an Egalitarian Society: Towards Politics of Racial Harmony and Equity in South Africa (African Political, Economic, and Security Issues)

Gender Equity in South African Education 1994-2004: Conference Proceedings