Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Goodrich, Cole Accepted Thesis SP24.pdf (1.56 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Radicals and Reformers: The Fight for Equal Education in Columbus Public Schools

Goodrich, Cole J.
http://orcid.org/0009-0001-0504-1704
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1713921642905751

Abstract Details

2024, Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, History (Arts and Sciences).
Despite serving as the capital of a prototypical Rustbelt state during a period of economic hardship and decline of other once prosperous neighboring Rustbelt cities, Columbus's history is rather separate from those of its peers. The strife experienced by the city during the 1960s and 1970s arose not from the collapse of its industrial districts, a dwindling white ethnic population, or the dilapidation of its infrastructure, but quite the opposite. Columbus’s history is one of a city and an education system unable and unwilling to adapt with the changing racial and economic make-up of a rapidly developing urban center. In turn, the city of Columbus and its Board of Education engineered and perpetuated the isolation and impoverishment of black residents to various ghettos across the city to contain and constrict the ever-growing black population that threatened to disrupt the status quo. Deprived by decades of neglect and injustice, Columbus’s black community sought to tear down the racial barriers constructed through neighborhood gerrymandering and attendance zones, economic, social, and political isolation, and unequal access to educational resources and facilities that had denied their children a quality education. This responsibility ultimately fell to civil rights activists, parents, students, and educators who struggled for decades against indecisive administrators, intransigent board members and trustees, recalcitrant white parents, and over one hundred years of purposeful separation of the city’s black and white communities through a system of de-facto racial segregation. Despite their struggle and the aid of local and national civil rights organizations, social scientists, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the progress achieved during the 1960s and 1970s was largely overshadowed by the betrayal of their efforts in 1996.
Paul Milazzo (Advisor)
142 p.
History
Columbus; Ohio; Civil Rights; Education; Segregation; 1960s; 1970s

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Goodrich, C. J. (2024). Radicals and Reformers: The Fight for Equal Education in Columbus Public Schools [Master's thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1713921642905751

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Goodrich, Cole. Radicals and Reformers: The Fight for Equal Education in Columbus Public Schools. 2024. Ohio University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1713921642905751.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Goodrich, Cole. "Radicals and Reformers: The Fight for Equal Education in Columbus Public Schools." Master's thesis, Ohio University, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1713921642905751

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1713921642905751
204
© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.