Education for Liberation
310 pages, 6 x 9
10 B&W illustrations
Paperback
Release Date:30 Sep 2015
ISBN:9780817358488
Education for Liberation
The American Missionary Association and African Americans, 1890 to the Civil Rights Movement
By Joe M. Richardson and Maxine D. Jones
University of Alabama Press
Education for Liberation completes the study Dr. Richardson published in 1986 as Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 by continuing the account of the American Missionary Association (AMA) from the end of Reconstruction to the post-World War II era.
Even after the optimism of Reconstruction was shattered by violence, fraud, and intimidation and the white South relegated African Americans to segregated and disfranchised second-class citizenship, the AMA never abandoned its claim that blacks were equal in God’s sight, that any “backwardness” was the result of circumstance rather than inherent inferiority, and that blacks could and should become equal citizens with other Americans. The organization went farther in recognition of black ability, humanity, and aspirations than much of 19th and 20th century white America by publicly and consistently opposing lynching, segregation, disfranchisement, and discrimination.
Even after the optimism of Reconstruction was shattered by violence, fraud, and intimidation and the white South relegated African Americans to segregated and disfranchised second-class citizenship, the AMA never abandoned its claim that blacks were equal in God’s sight, that any “backwardness” was the result of circumstance rather than inherent inferiority, and that blacks could and should become equal citizens with other Americans. The organization went farther in recognition of black ability, humanity, and aspirations than much of 19th and 20th century white America by publicly and consistently opposing lynching, segregation, disfranchisement, and discrimination.
The AMA regarded education as the means to full citizenship for African Americans and supported scores of elementary and secondary schools and several colleges at a time when private schooling offered almost the only chance for black youth to advance beyond the elementary grades. Such AMA schools, with their interracial faculties and advocacy for basic civil rights for black citizens, were a constant challenge to southern racial norms, and trained thousands of leaders in all areas of black life.
[Richardson and Jones’] collaborative effort here yields a rich and fascinating portrait of the people who made the American Missionary Association into one of the most long-lived and radical opponents of racism in the modernizing South.’
—Journal of Southern History
Based on extensive research in the archives at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane, which houses the AMA [American Missionary Association] papers, and primarily factual and informative rather than interpretive, this work will be of great value as a reference for all scholars concerned with black education in the South through the first half of the twentieth century. Particularly noteworthy is the coverage of the tenure of Frederick Brownlee, head of the AMA from 1920 to 1950, who brought the organization out of an era of paternalism into strong support for civil equality.'
—CHOICE
[The authors] provide a thoroughly researched, nuanced, and dispassionate account of African Americans' long struggle for educational opportunity in the post-Reconstruction South.'
—American Historical Review
Joe M. Richardson is emeritus professor of History at Florida State University and author of African Americans in the Reconstruction of Florida, 1865-1877 and A History of Fisk University. Maxine D. Jones is professor of History at Florida State University and is co-author of Talladega College.
