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Leadership in the Shadow of Jim Crow: Race, Labor, Gender, and Politics of African American Higher Education in North Carolina, 1860-1931

Adkins, Maurice
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin162766471469087

Abstract Details

2021, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: History.
The dissertation illuminates the complex interplay between African American higher education, self-help, gender bias, capitalist exploitation, white supremacy, and politics in the state of North Carolina. At the core of this monograph is an exploration into competing forces between black men and women who led and created opportunities at the higher education institutions and the economic and political agenda of white supremacy. I argue the institutions were built environments for economic and social justice through its curriculum and various social organizations that responded to the local, state, and national issues facing black men and women. I further explore how these leaders' upbringing influenced a curriculum that instilled self-determination and community, which entailed an astute independent citizenry that would create economic and educational opportunities for rural and urban dwellers. Lastly, to retain these institutions, I illuminate how the black leaders used the fear of integration as a tool to garner funds and resources. Overall, the research not only explores how the state institutions were established as a compromise by white democrats seeking to appease African Americans to prevent federal intervention, but how these institutions, in many ways, were dual controlled spaces that allowed the state government to regulate the education and labor of African Americans, while black leaders instilled ideas of racial pride, uplift, and entrepreneurship. For a while, historians have provided studies on black education through a regional analysis, centering their studies mainly on blacks' gains in the South through self-determination, compromise, and accommodation. But because the training focused on agriculture, mechanical, and liberal arts, historians often referred to the ideas, advocacy, and works of Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois, whose debates without a doubt are pivotal to the study of black education but dismisses the practical work of the people who advocated and implemented education in their various states before these men came into the mainstream. My research fills in these gaps by focusing on the work of black leaders such as James Walker Hood, the first African American Superintendent of Education in North Carolina, Abraham Galloway, one of the first black legislators in the state general assembly who proposed legislation to create black state-funded schools, and Joseph Price, the president of Livingstone College and the earliest known college president who advocated for the creation of a college of agriculture and mechanical arts for black people in North Carolina. I further show the close relationship of black state leaders and their shared vision for education and life for the people they represented. Although black men held most of the leadership positions at the black institutions, the research shows how black women played a crucial role in developing these institutions and did not hesitate to advocate for themselves when the paternal leadership tried to limit their educational options. The way they supported and created spaces for themselves at these institutions, I think, is crucial to our understanding of the collective consciousness and culture at these institutions.
Tracy Teslow, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Mark Lause, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
David Stradling, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Nikki Taylor, PhD in US History (Committee Member)
230 p.
Black History
Education; HBCU; Black Leadership; Black Education; African American Education; Jim Crow

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Adkins, M. (2021). Leadership in the Shadow of Jim Crow: Race, Labor, Gender, and Politics of African American Higher Education in North Carolina, 1860-1931 [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin162766471469087

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Adkins, Maurice. Leadership in the Shadow of Jim Crow: Race, Labor, Gender, and Politics of African American Higher Education in North Carolina, 1860-1931. 2021. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin162766471469087.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Adkins, Maurice. "Leadership in the Shadow of Jim Crow: Race, Labor, Gender, and Politics of African American Higher Education in North Carolina, 1860-1931." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin162766471469087

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin162766471469087
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.