From Statehood to School Desegregation: Racial Disparites in the Public Education of Mississippi, 1817 - 1969

In Williams et al. v. Bryant et al. (2017), four Black mothers claim their elementary-aged children are educated in schools with predominantly Black enrollments that have conditions incomparable to schools in neighboring school districts with predominantly White enrollments and higher socioeconomic statuses. The lawsuit claims this racial inequality in education is a violation of the post-Civil War Readmission Act (1868) requirement to provide a “uniform system of free public schools” (Williams et al. v. Bryant et al., 2017, p. 3) and to not modify state laws to disadvantage a group of citizens. <br><br>As the case moves through the courts one generation after Black parents in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969) fought for school desegregation to produce racial equality in education, this archival study investigates to what extent Mississippi administered racial disparities in public education between Black students and White students from its statehood in 1817 through desegregation. This period of history was selected with implications for explaining systemic racial disparities as school resegregated shortly after Alexander v. Holmes enforced desegregation, school desegregation “failed to narrow educational gaps or alter the educational status of most Blacks” (Baker, 2001, p. 321), and parental education can influence a student’s education outcomes.<br><br>The data show Mississippi amended its laws and reformed its educational practices to (a) deny Black slaves access to education; (b) delay the consolidation of Black schools; (c) require Black Mississippians to pay a large percentage of the cost for the construction of their schools; (d) distribute school funding unequally; (e) permit elementary school attrition; (f) repeal its compulsory attendance law. These barriers were enacted to resist school desegregation and to prevent high school education in an overall effort to maintain a pre-Civil War racial hierarchy.