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CHAPTER 41
THE NEGRO SCHOOL
I. Negro Education as Concerted Action
The trend toward a rising educational level of the Negro population is
of tremendous importance for the power relations discussed in this Part of
our inquiry. Education means an assimilation of white American culture.
It decreases the dissimilarity of the Negroes from other Americans. Since
the white culture is permeated by democratic valuations, and since the caste
relation Is anything but democratic, education is likely to increase dissatis-
faction among Negroes. This dissatisfaction strengthens the urge to with-
draw from contact with prejudiced whites and causes an intensified isolation
between the two groups.*^ Increasing education provides theories and tools
for the rising Negro protest against caste status in which Negroes are held.
It trains and helps to give an economic livelihood to Negro leaders.
In the Negro community, education is the main factor for the stratifica-
tion of the Negro people into social classes.*’ The professionals who base
their status upon having acquired a higher education form a substantial part
of the Negro upper classes. And even In the middle and lower classes,
educational levels signify class differences in the Negro community. In
addition, education has a symbolic significance in the Negro world: the
educated Negro has, in one important respect, become equal to the better
class of whites.
These tendencies are most unhampered in the North. There Negroes
have practically the entire educational system flung open to them without
much discrimination. They are often taught in mixed schools and by white
teachers 3
some of the Negro teachers have white pupils. Little attempt is
made to adjust the teaching specifically to the Negroes’ existing status and
future possibilities. The American Creed permeates instruction, and the
Negro as well as the white youths are inculcated with the traditional
American virtues of efficiency, thrift and ambition. The American dream
of individual success is held out to the Negroes as to other students. But
employment opportunities—and, to a lesser extent, some other good things
• See Chapter 30, Section z.
See Chapter 32, Sections i and 2.
879
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