African American Teachers

African-American teachers educated African Americans and taught each other to read during slavery in the South. Slaves ran small schools in secret. While, in the North, African Americans worked alongside with Whites. Many privileged African Americans in the North wanted their children taught with White children and were pro-integration. The Black middle class preferred segregation. During the post-Reconstruction era African Americans built their own schools so they don't have White control. The Black middle class believed that it could provide quality education for their community. This resulted in the foundation of teaching as a profession for Blacks. Some Black families dedicated their lives teaching. They felt that they can empower their communities. In the 1890s, Southern States passed Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation in all aspects of society. Racism played a huge factor that made it difficult for Black professionals to work in other professions.In 1950, African American teachers made up about half of African American professional workers.

The Great Depression in the 1930s had a dramatic economic impact among Southern Black Americans. This resulted in the degradation of segregated Black schools. African Americans were deteriorating economically and plead for integration, in hopes of making more resources available. The legal desegregation of schools in the U.S. by federal enforcement of a series of Supreme Court decisions after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Desegregation resulted in the loss of many jobs for African American teachers. Whites didn't want their children taught by Black teachers.African American teachers lost their jobs immediately after desegregation. The African American communities lost their leaders and role models. It created a distrust in schools from the Black community.

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