More Than One Struggle: The Evolution of Black School Reform in Milwaukee

by Jack Dougherty

Traditional narratives of black educational history suggest that African Americans offered a unified voice concerning Brown v. Board of Education . Jack Dougherty counters this interpretation, demonstrating that black activists engaged in multiple, overlapping, and often conflicting strategies to advance the race by gaining greater control over schools.

Dougherty tells the story of black school reform movements in Milwaukee from the 1930s to the 1990s, highlighting the multiple perspectives within each generation. In profiles of four leading activists, he reveals how different generations redefined the meaning of the Brown decision over time to fit the historical conditions of their particular struggles. William Kelley of the Urban League worked to win teaching jobs for blacks and to resettle Southern black migrant children in the 1950s; Lloyd Barbee of the NAACP organized protests in support of integrated schools and the teaching of black history in the 1960s; and Marian McEvilly and Howard Fuller contested--in different ways--the politics of implementing desegregation in the 1970s, paving the way for the 1990s private school voucher movement. Dougherty concludes by contrasting three interpretations of the progress made in the fifty years since Brown , showing how historical perspective can shed light on contemporary debates over race and education reform.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, African American, History

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2004

Reviews

[Margaret Wilber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific book even though reading it was so disturbing! It was very stressful to learn about the tremendous efforts that were made to make the Milwaukee education system more equitable and then think about the dire situation it's still in today. It definitely didn't help that NPR came out with a report as I was reading this declaring that Milwaukee schools are the most segregated in the country. The fact that this book mentions how the bigots started moving out to Waukesha and Washington County (where I live) was also very aggravating.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It won't win any points for prose, but this book is a nuanced interpretation of how thr Black community responded to the messy and incomplete implementation of Brown v Board of Ed in Milwaukee. Whatever you imagined when reading that sentence, it's not as straightforward as you'd think.

[Tess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This morning I woke up at 6, because my roommate has jetlag (she flew in from Rome last night). Instead of falling asleep, I picked up the book laying next to my pillow, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009, and read an essay called "Relations," by Eula Biss. It's about a white woman who was accidentally implanted with an embryo from her husband, a white man, and an embryo black man. When she gave birth, the family who'd intended to have the black baby and the family who had the baby fought for custody. There was concern about a black boy growing up in a white family versus in a black family. It's very good at 6 am. In my English class, we're reading Quicksand by Nella Larsen, which is about the duality of being biracial and identifying with both races. Sometimes life lines up, and it's pretty cool.

Most of my Alternative Education Perspectives classmates think the writing is tedious, and I agree; this dissertation tries pretty hard to cover 60 years of racial struggle in the Milwaukee Public School system, which is just too much. But it's interesting, and it's inspired me to learn more about the enigma of school desegregation.

[allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it. You will thank me later.