Segregation by gerrymander: The creation of the Lincoln Heights (Ohio) school district

Journal of Negro Education, The, Spring 1997 by Patricia Randolph Leigh

This historical case study traces the formation of a specific school district profoundly influenced by racial, political, sociological, and economic factors. Its analysis of the racial, political, and economic environments prevailing in Cincinnati, Ohio, from the turn of the century through the 1950s illuminates the formation of a school district serving a predominantly low-income Black community and student body. This investigation shows how economic factors influenced the formation of cities and communities and how the formation of school districts was intricately tied to this evolution. Furthermore, it confirms the relationship between economic participation and educational opportunities and explains the causes behind the emergence of race and class-segregated communities and school districts.

INTRODUCTION

Historical Background

As Carter (1995) and Russo, Harris, and Sandidge (1994) point out, the educational system in the United States historically has failed to provide equal access to all citizens. Evidence of this failure is found, and somewhat explained, in the research literature that points convincingly to a link between the nation's educational and economic systems (Becker, 1964; Bowman, 1991; Weiss, 1995). Such a relationship, by its very nature, inhibits the equality of educational opportunities available to all Americans. For example, as outlined by Bowman (1991), the association between educational attainment and economic status supports the notion that a positive and reciprocal relationship exists between the level of participation in the economic system and level of access to quality education. One underlying premise of the research detailed in the present article is that this linkage has served to disenfranchise the Black American from slavery to citizenship and from past to present.

During slavery, the relationship between economic participation and educational opportunity was obvious. Efforts to teach Black slaves to read and write were virtually nonexistent. The slave participated in the economic system not as an individual entity with the rights, privileges, and benefits accorded free citizens but rather as an inanimate cog in the production process at worst and as an agent to a privileged individual at best. Although there were groups such as the Quakers, who extended opportunities to Blacks, the larger society denied slaves personal access to goods and services. If the Black slave's duties required literacy, then, and typically only then, the slaveowner would provide the appropriate training and education. Webber (1978) chronicles such a case in his work on slave education between 1831 and 1865. As he notes:

Some few masters appear to have taken an active interest in the education of a select few slaves. J. H. Curry's father was taught to read and write by his master who was a doctor so that he could take the addresses of visiting patients. (p. 132)

The end of the Civil War brought large numbers of Blacks to urban areas seeking the American Dream. However, White Americans, including those whose political and military stances brought an end to physical bondage, were not willing to allow Blacks full participation in the economic system. Because of low wages and the intermittent absence of income, the Black residents of the urban centers could afford only the worst of living quarters, and educational opportunities for Black children were still scarce. After the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Blacks played a larger role in the economic organizations and structures. As would be predicted by the relationship between economic and educational participation hypothesized above, Black residents also created and partook of increased educational opportunities. Washington (1901) attests to this phenomenon in personal observations recorded during this era:

Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education... It was a whole race trying to go to school.. Dayschool, night-school, Sunday-school, were always crowded, and often many had to be turned away for want of room. (p. 30)

Though Reconstruction was short-lived, it demonstrated the existence of a positive relationship between the economic and educational systems. When Congress restored political rights and powers to the ex-Confederates, Urban and Wagoner (1996) contend that it removed or seriously compromised the temporary enfranchisement of Black Americans.

Perhaps these diminished expectations of social systems and institutions explain Booker T. Washington's commitment to the concept of industrial (or vocational) education as manifested by his work at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. According to Washington (1901), the institute's founders aimed to give Tuskegee students "such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us" (p. 126). Surmising that White employers would deny the newly freed Blacks jobs that required a liberal arts education, Washington speculated that the same controlling powers would deny such an education to Blacks. Indeed, Washington's most compelling reality was that "a vocational education was all that the larger, White-dominated society would allow" (Dunn, 1993, p. 27). Aware of job discrimination practices, he maintained that Blacks should seek economic freedom and autonomy by preparing for the jobs that would most likely be open to them. Thus, in this way, the expected level of accessibility to the economic system influenced the quality and type of education provided to and sought by Black Americans.