The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.
Abstract
James Anderson’s seminal text, Education of Blacks in the South,1 is a canonical work that uniquely articulated the educational environment of African Americans immediately, during, and after Reconstruction in the southern United States. Anderson evaluated the intellectual challenges that Black people faced in securing their human right to quality education, as well as the educational fortifications implemented by formerly enslaved Black individuals that laid the groundwork for the U.S. public education system we see today. In homage to this text, this study aims to examine the educational outcomes of Black students in K-12 classrooms using secondary data from the Office of Civil Rights Database and the National Center for Education Statistics, both underutilized and publicly available national databases. Our analysis covers only the southern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, spanning the 2017- 2018, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022 academic years. The analysis is guided by the dual theoretical lenses of institutional isomorphism and BlackCrit, which together illuminate how educational systems may reproduce similar structural conditions and racialized outcomes across states. Through this descriptive exploration, we aim to outline the current educational outcomes and trends for Black students across three key areas: graduation rates, Advanced Placement enrollment, and school discipline. Our findings offer a contemporary redux of Anderson’s work, while providing research-based solutions to sustain and develop the academic, behavioral, and cultural assets that Black children bring to PK-12 schools across the southern U.S.
Recommended Citation
John A. Williams III, , Aminah Crawford, Micayla Gooden, Virginia Redwine Johnson, Stephania Jackson, and Salandra Grice-Johnson. 2026. "Education of Blacks in the South: A Redux and Revival." The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. 43, (2):6-34. https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/griot/vol43/iss2/4
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