Interestingly, Ramsey notes that when civil rights organizations pushed for desegregation, they portrayed the schools — and the teachers — as substandard. Black teachers “took a hit with the Brown decision and lost jobs.” As a result, she suggests that many teachers were estranged from the activists of the movement. “We have a romanticized notion of the movement,” she says. “Not everybody participated.”
However, Ramsey writes that despite some antipathy and fear of
job loss, “their efforts to motivate, sustain and support students
suggest deep engagement with the movement.”
Ramsey also believes her research has relevance to today’s African-American teachers. It helps to explain the decline in Black teachers since the 1970s, when more opportunities opened up in other professions. And just as the Black teachers of the past adjusted and improvised in order to educate their students, Ramsey believes today’s teachers face similar challenges resulting not only from desegregation, but from “changing concepts of pedagogy … and shifting social values.”
—By Pearl Stewart
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
