Franklin, V. P. & Savage, Carter Julian (Eds.) (2004). Cultural Capital and Black Education: African American Communities and the Funding of Black Schooling, l865 to the Present. Reviewed by Mary Dolores Guerra, Arizona State University

Franklin, V. P. & Savage, Carter Julian (Eds.) (2004). Cultural Capital and Black Education: African American Communities and the Funding of Black Schooling, l865 to the Present. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Pp. ix + 184 $34.95   (Papercover) ISBN 1-59311-040-5 $69.95   (Hardcover) ISBN 1-59311-041-3 Reviewed by Mary Dolores Guerra Arizona State University January 23, 2006 A common myth is that African Americans do not value education. Cultural Capital and Black Education helps to dispel this myth and instead informs the reader that education is a core value in African American communities. This book is the second volume in Research on African American Education; the series editors are Carol Camp Yeakey and Ronald D. Henderson. Earlier versions of six chapters in this volume were published in The Journal of African American History, vol. 88, Spring 2002. The book is co-edited by V.P. Franklin from Teachers College, Columbia University, who is a professor of history and education. Franklin also is the editor of The Journal of African American History. The other co-editor is Carter Julian Savage from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, who is the vice president of Youth Development Services for the Club and an education historian. Savage’s focus is on African Americans in the rural South, education of contemporary African American youth, and the theoretical framework of after-school educational programs for at-risk youths. Both editors contribute chapters to this book. The articles in this volume document African American contributions through their “cultural capital” in the educational arena to all-black public and private educational institutions in Ohio, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other northern and southern states between 1865 and the present. In the Foreword, Camp Yeakey and Henderson, write that this volume is “so unique” because it examines the role of African Americans in providing the financial and other material resources for African American schools in the United States. Further, the series editors state that African Americans recognized the “value of literacy and school for themselves and their children, literacy and formal schooling became closely associated with freedom, with emancipation” (p. ix). In the Introduction, co-editor V.P. Franklin defines “cultural capital” as “the sense of group consciousness and collective identity that serves as an economic resource for the financial and material support of business enterprises that are aimed at the advancement of an entire group” (p. xiv). The other authors share this definition. One of the main reasons that African American communities had to use their “cultural capital” was because state and local officials did not provide equal or even adequate funding for separate public black schools. School officials paid the salaries of black teachers, usually at a lower rate than they paid white teachers, but black schools lacked the resources--“blackboards, pencils, books, chairs, desks and even land and the buildings”--for basic instruction, (p. xii). African American communities had to provide these resources for their students or else the children would do without. In essence, impoverished African Americans paid “double taxation” (p. xii). Any tax they paid to the government for education went primarily to white schools Franklin asserts that formerly enslaved African Americans were willing to submit to this form of double taxation because education was a core value in their cultural value system, a pathway to literacy and freedom. All nine chapters of this book demonstrate the ways African Americans used cultural capital to support the education of the children within their communities. In chapter one, "’I Must Learn Now or Not at All’: Social and Cultural Capital in the Educational Initiatives of Formerly Enslaved African Americans in Mississippi, 1862-1869,” Christopher M. Span explains that in Mississippi during the Reconstruction period, African Americans pushed for public schools to educate equally every child, black or white. Span describes the grass roots efforts of formerly enslaved African Americans to educate their children. He echoes Franklin’s claim that formerly enslaved African Americans valued education because they associated it with “freedom, autonomy, and self-determination” (p. 4). Obtaining an education served a “dual purpose”: any amount of education helped shed their “slave status” and gave them “greater freedom as prospective citizens” (p. 4). Further, African Americans valued literacy for practical reasons; they could “read the Bible and teach it to their children, understand their legal rights, negotiate labor contracts, and buy or lease land” (p. 5). This chapter also describes the steps African Americans took to build their own schools, pay teachers’ salaries, and purchase land, even though they were landless and poverty-stricken. Monetary contributions were not the only ways African Americans provided for their children’s education, they also paid their teachers by providing clothing and food, local transportation and shelter, in addition to providing labor for the building the schools. Theses examples of cultural capital further dispel the myth that African Americans do not value education. In chapter two, “Owning, Controlling, and Building Upon Black Cultural Capital: The Albany Enterprise Academy and Black Education in Southeast Ohio, 1863-1886,” Adah Ward Randolph maintains that education was essential to securing African American freedom and their cultural development. Randolph describes the pursuit of education in a northern state, Ohio, where African Americans lived with the “black laws” imposed on them. Although the Ohio constitution of 1803 required the formation of common schools, public schools were not established until 1925. Whites were against the inclusion of African Americans at these common schools. In 1929, the newly passed black laws excluded all black youth from participating in the public school system in Ohio. In response, African Americans in the early 1930s, using their cultural capital, established separate educational institutions, owned and operated by African Americans. This chapter highlights several all black private schools in Ohio. One of those schools was known as the Albany Manual Labor academy, which opened in 1950, At this school, students and teachers both performed manual labor to help offset the costs and expenses of the school. A unique characteristic of the school was that it admitted African Americans and women. The academy not only instructed its students in basic education but also prepared them for college. In 1853, the Academy became Albany Manual Labor University. In a strange twist of fate, however, in 1862 due to the lack of funding and the outbreak of the Civil War, the Academy was sold to a Christian church and became Franklin College, which did not admit African Americans. This chapter also traces the history of the Albany Enterprise Academy and the influence of abolitionist Thomas Jefferson Ferguson upon the Academy. The Albany Enterprise Academy’s 1864 constitution stated, “We have established [this Academy] to demonstrate the capacity of colored men to originate and successfully manage such a school” (p. 20). Ferguson, the author of Hope of the Race, published in 1966, believed that “education was the key to African American Advancement” (p. 20). Not until after the Civil War did black children gain access to public education in Ohio. Chapter 3 explores African Americans’ pursuit of higher education during segregation. In “Cultural Capital and Black Higher Education: The AME Colleges and Universities as Collective Economic Enterprises, 1865-1910,” co-editor Franklin describes early efforts of African American churches to establish institutions of higher education. These institutions depended on several types of capital--social, financial, physical, and human--in the form of teachers and administrators. Cultural capital was also an important economic resource because the religious denominations could use it to raise funds for the institutions. Franklin claims that collective economic enterprises and philanthropy opened higher education institutions and have been “important for the social development and advancement of African Americans in the United States” (p. 45). In chapter four, co-editor Carter Julian Savage, in “Our School in Our Community: The Collective Economic Struggle for African American Education in Franklin, Tennessee, 1890-1967,” directs the reader’s attention to African American community’s “agency” and their cultural capital in the south. Savage writes that African Americans, historically “have struggled to obtain effective education through numerous self-determinist strategies” (p. 51). He describes these strategies as “agency,” , which stem from a”an African American ethos of self-determination and social advancement” (p. 50), African Americans held Bible study groups on plantations and established segregated public schools. Savage writes that four elements comprised this agency: “1. African Americans’ zeal for education[,] 2. the African American community’s propensity to give to their schools[,] 3. the devotion of poorly paid, African American teachers[, and] 4. the willingness of African American students to attend “distressingly poor facilities” (p. 52). Savage gives several examples of schools established by African American cultural capital. He also states that one of the “most explicit ways the black community used cultural capital for education was in the area of ‘resource development’” (p. 67), for example by hosting “pie struts,” “cake walks,” and “queen drives” (p. 67). Parents and teachers willingly participated in these events for the betterment of the children. In the final section of this chapter, “Desegregation and the Loss of Cultural Capital,” Savage asserts that the closing of all black schools after desegregation was an end of an era that meant a “loss of tradition, ownership and the collapse of a school community” (p. 72). Savage further asserts that African American cultural capital was “important for their children, for their schools, and for their community” (p. 74). Chapter 5 takes us to Texas to explore cultural capital in that region. Peggy B. Gill, in “Community, Commitment, and African American Education: The Jackson School of Smith County, Texas, 1925-1954,” discusses the importance of bringing “soul” to the school. The soul she speaks of is not necessarily a religious soul but about spirituality. This chapter presents a narrative about Jackson School, using the voices of teachers and students who experienced the school’s origins and development. Gill describes an ethic of caring and commitment to education of African Americans during segregation. The recollections of the teachers and students provide “rich historical, personal, and cultural information” (p. 94). Besides this information, the recollections also provide important data for today’s educators. Success was not measured by achievement tests or college entrance exam scores, but instead it was determined by “individual student participation and achievement, parental participation in and support of the school, student employability, and benefits provided to the community” (p. 95). Gill urges educational leaders to consider the “important relationship between a community and its school(s)” (p. 95). [Mary: if you added the “s” to “school” then it should be in brackets, not parens. [That’s how Gill wrote the sentence]] Chapter 6 looks at nearly a hundred years of philanthropy among African American women. Bettye Collier-Thomas, in "’Sister Laborers’: African American Women, Cultural Capital, and Educational Philanthropy, 1865-1970,” describes black women’s philanthropic activities in the areas of education, health, and social welfare. Collier-Thomas states that “women who engaged in reform work were philanthropists” (p. 97). One of her goals in this chapter is to shatter the myth of black apathy regarding community needs. Collier-Thomas states that black women engaged in philanthropic activities to benefit African Americans as a group. She asserts that the “history of African American women and philanthropy has not been written” (101). She further maintains that “dual consciousness of race and gender” fuels the philanthropic efforts of generations of black women. Collier-Thomas demonstrates that by using their cultural capital African American women accomplished many important and notable works. In chapter seven "’Maintaining a Home for Girls’: The Iowa Federation of Colored Women's Clubs at the University of Iowa, 1919-1950,” Richard M. Breaux adds to Collier-Thomas work by describing the formation of a residence hall for African American women at the University of Iowa. The hall was created because blacks were not allowed in the all-white dormitories. The hall was established through collective efforts of an African American women’s club. The sacrifices the club made inspired the women who served to use their education for the advancement of the African American group as a whole. In Chapter 8, “Paradise Lost?: Teachers' Perspectives on the Use of Cultural Capital in the segregated Schools of New Orleans, Louisiana,” Monica A. White depicts the public school system in Louisiana before, during and after segregation. She quotes W.E.B. du Bois as stating that African Americans did not need segregated schools or mixed schools, what they needed was an education. White states that the kind of education du Bois meant was a quality education. White writes that before desegregation African American teachers taught black pride to their students. Further, White adds, teachers considered their work a calling, a vocation. Teachers lived and worked in the community, they had an investment in it. “Teachers served as intellectual role models” (p. 145), writes White. Teachers were on a “mission” (p. 146). In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision ended legal segregation. In southern school districts, desegregation not only meant the loss of hundreds of jobs for teachers and principals but also meant the loss of “race-conscious education” (p. 146). The closure of all black schools implied that these schools were “inherently inferior” (p. 149), and that black children had to leave their schools to attend all white schools, thus, they carried the burden on their young backs. Further, teachers no longer felt a part of the community; they felt like outsiders, teaching the curriculum that was given to them, instead of creating a curriculum designed to meet the needs of their students. White encourages today’s teachers to once again strive to become role models, mentors, to have a sense of mission and a spirit of professionalism to increase academic success among African American children in urban public school settings. In the final chapter, Chapter 9, “Social Capital, Cultural Capital, and the Challenge of African American Education in the 21st Century,” co-editor Franklin helps the reader understand the disconnect between previous generations of African Americans who eagerly contributed to the education of their youth and today’s generation that seems apathetic about the educational problems that afflict their community. Franklin asserts that integration has meant the demise of excellent all-black schools and other cultural institutions. Moreover, Franklin asserts that “African Americans came to believe that the government would assume responsibility for protecting the health, physical, and intellectual well-being of African American children, and for preparing them for their role as contributing adults in American society” (p. 162). Franklin states that integration should be about helping African Americans reach their collective vision; this vision has been articulated in response to the question, “Why are we here?” (p. 162). He admits that the older generation of African Americans has not prepared its young people to answer this question. He claims that a need for a “new educational organization” exists to assume leadership to help prepare the children for their future (p. 163). Franklin proposed that this organization would be called the African American Council on Education (AACE). Franklin states that he would encourage the AACE not to get “bogged down” in trying to achieve “the myth of ‘black unity’” instead to strive for solidarity (p. 165). The AACE’s main objective would be to “generate and use cultural capital to support the implementation of culturally salient models of schooling for African American children” (p. 165). In doing so, Franklin believes that African American children then can answer the all-important question, “Why am I here?” This book helps dispel the myth that African Americans do not value education by demonstrating the sacrifices that freed slaves made to educate themselves and their children. One element that flows from this book, which author Gill’s chapter demonstrated, is soul. This soul strengthens and at the same time softens the discussion. The chapters deeply moved me, and I believe it will move readers to reconsider the assumptions held about the African American community’s regard for education. African Americans cared and care deeply about educating their children. The book did not get lost in a romantic vision of the past; instead the chapters were real, presenting stories of real people who were committed to the advancement of their community during segregation and desegregation. About the Reviewer Mary Dolores Guerra is a Ph.D. student in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University. Her focus is on Dropout Prevention and High School Completion. She obtained her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 2000 and is an attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.