Deschutes Public Library

The lost education of Horace Tate, uncovering the hidden heroes who fought for justice in schools, Vanessa Siddle Walker

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-353) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The lost education of Horace Tate

bibliography

1004596768

Vanessa Siddle Walker

uncovering the hidden heroes who fought for justice in schools

"In the epic tradition of Eyes on the Prize and with the cultural significance of John Lewis's March trilogy, an ambitious and harrowing account of the devoted black educators who battled Southern school segregation and inequality"--, Provided by publisherOne fateful day almost twenty years ago, Vanessa Siddle Walker met Dr. Horace Edward Tate, a former teacher, principal, and eventually a state senator. An award-winning historian of education, Walker had spent decades chronicling the triumphs and tribulations of segregtated schools in the South. But as Dr. Tate shared with her one memory at a time - clandestine midnight trips on unpaved roads and meetings with Dr. King and U.S presidents - he described a world she had no previously known. The full implications of Dr. Tate's story would elude Walker until shortly before his death, when he entrusted to her a secret archive he'd kept to document the tenacious work of black educators whose roles in the civil rights movement had been overlooked by history. Walker froze. She knew that massive collections of black educational records were rare. Then she got to work. The Lost Education of Horace Tate is the result of an eighteen-year effort to unearth a more epic story of the civil rights battles - in courtrooms, schools, and communities - leading up to and following Brown v. Board of Education. This ambitious narrative introduces the underground actors who organized in the face of violent threats, job loss, and hostile communities; little-known accounts of prominent leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson; and hidden provocateurs like Dr. Tate, who boldly prophesied - as he witnessed the promise of Brown unraveling - that "second class integration...is more evil than was segregation." The names of the lawyers, the legal cases, and the legislation devoted to equity are duly extolled and emblazoned in our national memory. Yet the masterful strategies and integral role of black educators in this fight have, until now, been largely veiled. A penetrating corrective to our narrative of education in the South, this monumental work is itself an education in how we remember and understand American history. --, From dust jacket