Black education was a fugitive project from its inception — outlawed and defined as a criminal act regarding the slave population in the southern states and, at times, too, an object of suspicion and violent resistance in the North. — Jarvis Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy
Download a mini version of this lesson for Teach Truth Day of Action activities.
This lesson reveals a pattern: When Black people make significant educational gains — or score victories in their broader struggles for freedom — there is a corresponding white supremacist backlash that often includes legal restrictions and violence. We could call this phenomenon, educational retaliation correspondence (ERC). But this lesson challenges students to come up with their own name for the concept.
This lesson teaches the concept of ERC by exploring major examples of laws passed to curb Black education in the wake of major victories for the Black Freedom Struggle, highlighting the historical context and motivations behind these legislative efforts. Here are the laws the students investigate:
Scenario 1: The South Carolina Negro Act (1740)
Passed in response to the Stono Rebellion, this law made it illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write, aiming to prevent further insurrections.
Scenario 2: Ban on Insurrectionary Pamphlets (1829)
Enacted in response to David Walker’s Appeal, this law criminalized the distribution of materials that could incite rebellion to slavery.
Scenario 3: Virginia Literacy Ban (1832)
Following the publication of David Walker’s Appeal in 1829, Nat Turner’s rebellion, and other rebellions, states across the South began to pass or amend existing anti-literacy laws that prohibited the education of enslaved and free Black people.
Scenario 4: The Connecticut “Black Law” (1833)
Prohibited the establishment of schools for Black students who were not residents of Connecticut, in response to the abolition movement.
Scenario 5: The Black Codes (1865)
Sought to limit the economic and educational opportunities available to Black people as a result of emancipation after the Civil War. In many states, Black Codes restricted access to education by underfunding schools for Black children or outright denying public education.
Scenario 6: Florida Constitution (1885)
Mandated separate and unequal educational systems for Black and white students, in response to the opening of schools for Black students during Reconstruction.
Scenario 7: South Carolina Law Banning Educator Membership in the NAACP (1956)
This law targeted public workers and teachers to suppress civil rights activism and maintain segregation.
Scenario 8: The Stanley Plan (1956)
Enacted to resist the desegregation mandated by Brown v. Board of Education, these laws sought to maintain racial segregation in schools.
Scenario 9: Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education (1983)
The adoption of multicultural curricula in Tennessee’s school districts led to a series of school bombings and a lawsuit filed by parents who didn’t want their kids to study about diverse experiences.
Scenario 10: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007)
The Seattle School District implemented a “racial tiebreaker” policy in 1998, which used race as a factor in determining school assignments when certain schools became oversubscribed. The goal was to maintain a level of racial diversity and prevent the resegregation of schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that policy unconstitutional. This was in response to efforts to desegregate schools in the 1990s around the country, including in Seattle.
Scenario 11: CRT and Antiracist Education Bans (2021)
These laws prohibit discussions of systemic racism and Black history in schools, following the 2020 uprising for Black lives.
Through this lesson, I hope students will recognize the pattern of white supremacist backlash to Black educational advancements, while also understanding the power and potential of education as a tool for liberation. By studying the laws enacted throughout history that sought to suppress education and social movements, students critically engage with the ways education has been both a site of oppression and a powerful weapon in the fight for freedom. Ultimately, I want students to leave with a deepened awareness of the centrality of education in Black Freedom Struggle and the role it can play in the struggles for racial justice today.
Classroom Stories
I used Legalize Black Education: The Long Fight for the Right to Learn for our summer learning project. I downloaded the lesson and used it to create lessons and worksheets for our social studies, science, math, ELA, and my class which is Intro to Law, Public Safety and Criminal Justice Essentials. In my class, we are discussing the laws that prevented Black people from receiving an education. In math, they will deal with the timeline. In social studies, they will discuss the historical events that led to the laws. In science, they are discussing the data and impact that HBCUs had on education for those previously denied an education, or an opportunity for an equal education. In English and language arts, they are reading about specific situations and cases that led to legalizing education for Black people, like Brown v. Board. While learning about this topic, students are working on projects to display along with the quotes in our gallery walk. We will present our projects at the end of summer school.
I am really excited to teach our particular population of students this subject since they are in a juvenile detention center. For the most part, they are Black and have denied themselves an education. I am so pleasantly surprised that they are interested in the topic and they themselves are excited to work on the projects for our gallery. I can’t wait to see what they retain from learning about this topic. I hope all of my students continue to get their education, and that I will reach and inspire at least a few to rise up and continue the fight for their own lives and the right to continue to equip themselves with the knowledge of true U.S. history. I hope they will know how to fight the system and the pipeline that led them to prison.
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