African American Teaching in the South: 1940–1960

Abstract

Researchers depict African American teachers in the South during segregation alternately as either victims of oppressive circumstances or as caring role models. These disparate portraits fail to reconcile the relationship of each depiction to the other. This article addresses this omission by providing a historiography of African American teaching between 1940 and 1960, with supplementary data from Georgia. Results indicate that African American teachers in the South worked in dismal, unfair, discriminatory positions, but did not allow themselves to become victims of their environments. Rather, they viewed themselves as trained professionals who embraced a series of ideas about how to teach African American children that were consistent with their professional discussions and their understanding of the African American community.