Model Schools in the Model City
Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation's Capital
Published on 22. April 2025
442 pages
978-0-8229-9184-7 (ISBN)
Description
Finalist for the 2026 ASALH Book Award
Access to educational resources has been a tool of liberation for Black Americans from the antebellum period to the present. With this book, Amber N. Wiley emphasizes the value of education as a means for social equality-Black Americans wanted the American Dream to apply to them, and equal opportunity for quality education was at the forefront of making that dream a reality. Model Schools in the Model City chronicles how Black Washingtonians used public education as a means of racial uplift in the face of entrenched white resistance and repeated assertions of white supremacy. For Black Washingtonians, it was the school building-a permanent structure, made of sturdy material-that was the physical realization of Black liberation, agency, and the right to exist as citizens of the United States. Furthermore, it was the school building that stood as the litmus test to whether Black Washingtonians' citizenship was perpetually guaranteed; thus, they fought with all the tools at their disposal to maintain access to quality education in the nation's capital. In this book, Wiley recounts the untold story of Black Washingtonians' educational ambitions, especially as they were manifested in the schools themselves.
Access to educational resources has been a tool of liberation for Black Americans from the antebellum period to the present. With this book, Amber N. Wiley emphasizes the value of education as a means for social equality-Black Americans wanted the American Dream to apply to them, and equal opportunity for quality education was at the forefront of making that dream a reality. Model Schools in the Model City chronicles how Black Washingtonians used public education as a means of racial uplift in the face of entrenched white resistance and repeated assertions of white supremacy. For Black Washingtonians, it was the school building-a permanent structure, made of sturdy material-that was the physical realization of Black liberation, agency, and the right to exist as citizens of the United States. Furthermore, it was the school building that stood as the litmus test to whether Black Washingtonians' citizenship was perpetually guaranteed; thus, they fought with all the tools at their disposal to maintain access to quality education in the nation's capital. In this book, Wiley recounts the untold story of Black Washingtonians' educational ambitions, especially as they were manifested in the schools themselves.
More details
Person
Amber N. Wiley is the Wick Cary Director of the Institute for Quality Communities and an Associate Professor of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design in the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma.
Content
- Cover
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction. Finding My Roots: Digging up the History of DC's Public Schools
- 1 Free to Learn: Building the Black Public School System
- 2 Hard Lessons: The Shackling of the Black Educational Landscape
- 3 Black Secondary Schools: Jim Crow Monuments to Racial Uplift
- 4 To Secure These Rights: Educational Equalization in the Postwar Metropolis
- 5 With the People, By the People, For the People: Shaw School Urban Renewal
- 6 Black Power and Brutalism: Activist Architects and Progressive School Design
- 7 Lessons Learned? The Politics of Preservation for Washington's Black Schools
- Epilogue. Rites of Passage: The Death and Life of Black Public Schools
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
