Tag: History

Book Review-Britain Begins, by Barry Cunliffe

Britain Begins, by Barry Cunliffe

The author tells the story here of both England and Ireland because they cannot be separated easily.  Since the very beginning of humans’ time in that part of the world, both lands and cultures were connected.  It is that united history that leads the way in this incredible story of the sometimes icy, sometimes verdant northern reaches of civilization.

The reader will find here exciting and revealing chapters in the history of movements throughout the pre-historic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and modern times of the isles.  There are clear and helpful illustrations, and there is enough information here to fill any semester-long course on the history of England, or rather Albion, as it was first called by those who were using formal language.

The author paints rich stories onto a canvas of what was once a chilly ice-covered region and which came to be a world power.  The author makes use of language, tools, science, history, and other major fields to tell about the different eras of the isles.

            The years of the Celts are very intriguing ones, indeed.  Cunliffe speaks of the idea that there were two entirely distinct waves of movement among them—including Iberia, Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and Wales (pp. 248-249).  He also speaks to the idea that the Celts started in the north and later in one era migrated as a large group southward to Brittany (p. 428).  He has a number of additional theories related to this and other good examples of “movement.”

            Another very interesting idea is that language, culture, and tools were shared up and down the west coast of Europe and up between the isles—a sort of “Atlantic” civilization (p. 344) emerging over time among the Celts.  This explains linguistic and other hints pointing to migrations and movements up and down the coast—as opposed to some earlier notions of “Spanish” Celts trudging only northward to the further reaches of what came to be the UK.

            Cunliffe talks about the notion of Celts moving southward—starting in Scotland and Ireland and coming down into Europe along the Atlantic.  The author uses many different sorts of proof to advance this theory, at the same time he asks additional questions.    

Teachers will be able to use this big book in a variety of ways.  First and foremost, it is important personal reading for any teacher interested in social studies in general and in the history of English-speaking people specifically.  Understanding the history of northwest Europe is helpful in understanding the intricate connections among the Celts and Europeans, the British and the Irish, and the Scandinavian and Germanic stock among the English.

Another important use is for helping students understand the power of “movement” among peoples, the conflicts created and agreements forged, and the resulting cultural and linguistic differences and similarities resulting from peoples coming into contact.  The notion of movement relates also to the travelling ideas, tools, traditions, names, weapons, foods, trades, and books, later.  Any standards and benchmarks related to movement are connected through teacher use of this book as a reference and resource.

Yet another good use of this volume is a textbook for a college-level course in history, of course.  Because it covers so very much information, it could also be used as a summer reading project for advanced rising college freshman students needing timely non-fiction reading. 

Those four uses of the book can be joined by another one I propose here: coffee table teaser.  It would be interesting to set this in plain view and see who would pick it up and want to start reading it.  It has a beautiful green cover.  There are in fact many photos, drawings, and illustrations inside.  The cover just might draw in some unsuspecting readers.

Unseen Fences: How Chicago Built Barriers Inside its Schools

Unseen Fences: How Chicago Built Barriers Inside its Schools

Emily Nicholson

Northern public schools are rarely ever centered in national narratives of segregation. Yet as Thomas Sugrue observes, “even in the absence of officially separate schools, northern public schools were nearly as segregated as those in the south.”[1] Chicago Illustrates this, despite the Jim Crow laws, the city developed a racially organized educational system that produced outcome identical to those segregated in southern districts.  The city’s officials celebrated equality while focusing on practices that isolated black students in overcrowded schools. The north was legally desegregated and was not pervasive but put into policies and structures of urban governance.

This paper argues that Chicago school segregation was intentional. It resulted from a coordinated system that connected housing discrimination, political resistance to integration, and targeted policies crafted to preserve racial separation in public schools. While Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregation by law, Chicago political leaders, school administration, and networks maintained it through zoning, redlining, and administrative manipulation. Using both primary source, newspapers NAACP records, and a great use of historical scholarship, this paper shows how segregation in Chicago was enforced, defended, challenged, and exposed by the communities that it harmed.

Historiography

The historical context outlined above leads to several central research questions that guide this paper. First, how did local governments and school boards respond to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and how did their policies influence the persistence of segregation in Chicago? Second, how did housing patterns and redlining contribute to the continued segregation of schools? Third, how did the racial dynamics of Chicago compare to those in other northern cities during the same period?

These questions have been explored by a range of scholars. Thomas Surgue’s Sweet Land of Liberty provides the framework for understanding northern segregation as a system put in the local government rather than state law. Sugrue argues that racism in the north was “structural, institutional, and spatial rather than legal, shaped through housing markets, zoning decisions, and administrative policy. His work shows that northern cities constructed segregation through networks of bureaucratic authority that were hard to challenge. Sugrue’s analysis supports the papers argument by demonstrating that segregation in Chicago was not accidental but maintained through everyday decisions.

Philip T.K. Daniel’s scholarship deepens this analysis of Chicago by showing how school officials resisted desegregation both before and after Brown v. Board. In his work A History of the Segregation-Discrimination Dilemma: The Chicago Experience, Daniel shows that Chicago public school leaders manipulated attendance boundaries, ignored overcrowding schools, and defended “neighborhood schools” as the way to preserve racial separation. Daniel highlights that “in the years since 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, research have repeatedly noted that all black schools are regarded inferior.”[2] Underscoring the continuing of inequality despite federal mandates. Daniel’s findings reinforce these papers claim that Chicago’s system was made intentional, and the local officials played a high role in maintaining segregation.

Dionne Danns offers a different perspective by examining how students, parents, and community activists responded to the Chicago public school’s discriminatory practices. In Crossing Segregated Boundaries, her study of Chicago’s High School Students Movement, Danns argues that local activism was essential to expose segregation that officials tied to hide. She shows that black youth did not just fix inequalities of their schools but also developed campaigns, boycotts, sit-ins, which challenged Chicago Public School officials and reshaped the politics of education. Danns’ work supports the middle portion of this paper, it analyzes how community resistance forced Chicago’s segregation practices in a public view.

Paul Dimond’s Beyond Busing highlights how the court system struggled to confront segregation in northern cities because it did not connect with the law. Dimond argues that Chicago officials used zoning, optional areas, intact busing, and boundaries to maintain separation while avoiding the law. He highlights that, “the constant thread in the boards school operation was segregation, not neighborhood,”[3] showing that geographic justification was often a barrier for racial intent. Dimond’s analysis strengthens the argument that Chicago’s system was coordinated and on purpose, built through “normal” administrative decisions.

Jim Carl expands the scholarship into the time of Harold Washington, showing how political leadership shaped the educational reform. Carl argues that Washington believed in improving black schools not through desegregation but through resource equity and economic opportunities for black students. This perspective highlights how entrenched the early segregation policies were, reformers like Washington built a system that was made to disadvantage black communities. While Carl’s focus is later in the Papers period, his work provides the importance of how political structure preserved segregation for decades.

Regional and National Context

Chicago’s experience with segregation was both typical and different among the northern cities. Cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York faced similar challenges. Chicago’s political machine created these challenges. As Danns explains in “Northern Desegregation: A Tale of Two Cities”, “Chicago was the earliest northern city to face Title VI complaint. Handling the complaint, and the political fallout that followed, left the HEW in a precarious situation. The Chicago debacle both showed HEW enforcement in the North and West and the HEW investigating smaller northern districts.”[4]  This shows how much political interest molded the cities’ approach to desegregation, and how federal authorities had a hard time holding the local systems responsible. The issue between the local power and federal power highlighted a broader national struggle for civil rights in the north, and a reminder that racial inequality was not only in one region but in the entire country. Chicago’s challenge highlights the issues of producing desegregation in areas where segregation was less by the law, and more by policies and politics.

Local policy and zoning decisions made segregation rise even more. In Beyond Busing, Paul R. Dimond says, “To relieve overcrowding in a recently annexed area with a racially mixed school to the northeast, the Board first built a school in a white part and then rejected the superintendent’s integrated zoning proposal to open new schools…. the constant thread in the Board’s school operations was segregation, not neighborhood.”3 These decisions show policy manipulation, rather than the illegal measures that maintained separation.

Dimond further emphasizes the pattern: “throughout the entire history of the school system, the proof revealed numerous manipulations and deviations from ‘normal’ geographic zoning criteria in residential ‘fringes’ and ‘pockets,’ including optional zones, discontinuous attendance areas, intact busing, other gerrymandering and school capacity targeted to house only one race; this proof raised the inference that the board chose ‘normal’ geographic zoning criteria in the large one-race areas of the city to reach the same segregated result.”3  These adjustments were hard but effective in strengthening segregation by making sure even when schools were open, the location, and resource issuing meant that black students and white students would have different education environments. The school board’s actions show a bigger strategy for protecting the status quo under the “neighborhood” schools and making it understandable that segregation was not an accident but a policy.

On the other hand, Carl highlights the policy solutions that are considered for promoting integration, other programs which attract a multiracial, mixed-income student body. Redraw district lines and place new schools to maximize integration… busing does not seem to be an issue in Chicago…it should be obviously metro wide, because the school system is 75 percent minority.” [5]. This approach shows the importance of system solutions that go beyond busing, and integration requires addressing the issue of racial segregation in schools. Carl’s argument suggests that busing itself created a lasting change. By changing district lines, it is not just about moving the children around, but to change the issues that reinforce segregation.

Understanding Chicago’s segregation requires comparing northern and southern practices. Unlike the south, where segregation was organized in law, northern segregation was de facto maintained through residential patterns, local policies, and bureaucratic practices. Sugrue explains, “in the south, racial segregation before Brown was not fundamentally intertwined with residential segregation.”1. This shows how urban geography and housing discrimination shaped educational inequality in northern cities. In Chicago, racial restrictive, reddling, confined black families to specific neighborhoods, and that decided which school the children could attend. This allowed northern officials to say that segregation was needed more than as a policy.

Southern districts did not rely on geographic attendance zones to enforce separation; “southern districts did not use geographic attendance zones to separate black and whites.”1. In contrast, northern cities like Chicago used zones and local governance to achieve smaller results. Danns notes, “while legal restrictions in the south led to complete segregation of races in schools, in many instances the north represented de facto segregation, which was carried out as a result of practice often leading to similar results”4. This highlights the different methods by segregation across regions, even after the legal mandates for integration. In the south, segregation was enforced by the law, making the racial boundaries clear and intentional.

Still, advocacy groups were aware of the nationwide nature of this struggle. In a newspaper called “Key West Citizen” it says, “a stepped-up drive for greater racial integration in public schools, North and South is being prepared by “negro” groups in cities throughout the country.”  Resistance for integration could take extreme measures, including black children to travel long distances to go to segregated schools, while allowing white children to avoid those schools. In the newspaper “Robin Eagle” it notes, “colored children forced from the school they had previously attended and required to travel two miles to a segregated school…white children permitted to avoid attendance at the colored school on the premise that they have never been enrolled there.” [6] These examples show how resistance to integration represents a national pattern of inequality. Even though activist and civil rights groups fought for the educational justice, the local officials and white communities found ways to keep racial segregation. For black families, this meant their children were affected by physical and emotional burdens of segregation like, long commutes, bad facilities, and reminder of discrimination. On the other hand, white students received help from more funding and better-found schools. These differences show how racial inequality was within American education, as both northern and southern cities and their systems worked in several ways.

Understanding Chicago’s segregation requires comparing northern and southern practices. Unlike the south, where segregation was organized in law, northern segregation was de facto maintained through residential patterns, local policies, and bureaucratic practices. Sugrue explains, “in the South, racial segregation before Brown was not fundamentally intertwined with residential segregation.”1. This shows how urban geography and housing discrimination shaped educational inequality in northern cities. In Chicago, racial restrictive, reddling, confined black families to specific neighborhoods, and that decided which school the children could attend. This allowed northern officials to say that segregation was needed more than as a policy.

Southern districts did not rely on geographic attendance zones to enforce separation; “southern districts did not use geographic attendance zones to separate black and whites.”1 In contrast, northern cities like Chicago used zone and local governance to achieve smaller results. Danns notes, “while legal restrictions in the south led to complete segregation of races in schools, in many instances the north represented de facto segregation, which was carries out as a result of practice often leading to similar results”.4 This highlights the different methods by segregation across regions, even after the legal mandates for integration. In the South, segregation was enforced by the law, making the racial boundaries clear and intentional.

Yet the advocacy groups were aware of the nationwide nature of this struggle. In a newspaper called “Key West Citizen” it says, “a stepped-up drive for greater racial integration in public schools, North and South is being prepared by “negro” groups in cities throughout the country.” Resistance for integration could take extreme measure, including black children to travel long distances to go to segregated schools, while allowing white children to avoid those schools. These examples show how resistance to integration represents a national pattern of inequality. Even though activist and civil rights groups fought for educational justice, the local officials and white communities found ways to keep racial segregation. For black families, this meant their children were affected by physical and emotion burdens of segregation like, long commutes, bad facilities, and reminder of discrimination. On the other hand, white students received help from more funding and better-found schools. These differences show how racial inequality was within American education, as both northern and southern cities and their systems worked in several ways.

The policies that shaped Chicago schools in the 1950’s and 1960’s cannot be understood without looking at key figures such as Benjamin Willis and Harold Washington. Benjamin Willis, who was a superintendent of Chicago Public Schools from 1953 to 1966 and became known for his resistance to integration efforts. Willis’ administration relied on the construction of mobile classrooms, also known as “Willis wagons,” to deal with the overcrowding of Black schools. Other than reassigning students to nearby under-enrolled schools, Willis placed these classrooms in the yards of segregated schools. As Danns explains, Willis was seen by Chicagoans as the symbol of segregation as he gerrymandered school boundaries and used mobile classrooms (labeled Willis Wagons) to avoid desegregation.”4  . His refusal to implement desegregation measures made him a target of protest, including boycotts led by families and students.

On the other hand, Harold Washington, who would become Chicago’s first black mayor, represented a shift towards community-based reform and equality-based policies. Washington believed that equality in education required more than racial integration, but it needed structural investment in Black schools and economic opportunities for Black students. Jim Carl writes, Washington’s approach, “Washington would develop over the next thirty-three years, one that insisted on adequate resources for Black schools and economic opportunities for Black students rather than viewing school desegregation as the primary vehicle for educational improvement.”5 His leadership came from the earlier civil rights struggles of the 1950’s and 1960’s with the justice movements that came in the post-civil rights era.

How Chicago Built Segregation

Chicago’s experience in the mid-twentieth century provides an example of how racial segregation was maintained through policy then law.  In the postwar era, there was an increase in Chicago’s population. Daniel writes, “this increased the black school population in that period by 196 percent.”4. By the 1950’s, the Second Great Migration influenced these trends, with thousands of Black families arriving from the south every year. As Sugrue notes, “Blacks who migrated Northern held high expectations about education.” 1.   There was hope the northern schools would offer opportunities unavailable in the South. Chicago’s public schools soon became the site of racial conflict as overcrowding; limited resources, and administrative discrimination showed the limits of those expectations.

One of the features of Chicago’s educational system is the era of the “neighborhood schools” policy. On paper, this policy allowed students to attend schools near their homes, influencing the community. In practice, it was a powerful policy for preserving racial segregation. Sugrue explains, “in densely populated cities, schools often within a few blocks of one another, meaning that several schools might serve as “neighborhood”.”1. Because housing in Chicago was strictly segregated through redlining, racially restrictive areas, and de facto residential exclusion, neighborhood-based zoning meant that Black and white students were put into separate schools. This system allowed city officials to claim that segregation reflected residential patterns rather than intentional and avoiding the violation of Brown. A 1960 New York Times article called, “Fight on Floor now ruled out” by Anthony Lewis, revealed how Chicago officials publicly dismissed accusations of segregation while internally sustaining the practice. The article reported that school leaders insisted that racial imbalance merely reflected “neighborhood conditions” and that CPS policies were “not designed to separate the races,” even as Black schools operated far beyond capacity.”[7] This federal-level visibility shows that Chicago’s segregation was deliberate: officials framed their decisions as demographic realities, even though they consistently rejected integration measures that would have eased overcrowding in Black schools.

The consequences of these policies became visible by the 1960’s. Schools in Black neighorhoods were overcrowded, operating on double shifts or in temporary facilities. As Dionne Danns describes in Northern Desegregation: A Tale of Two Cities, she says, “before school desegregation, residential segregation, along with Chicago Public School (CPS) leaders’ administrative decisions to maintain neighbor-hood schools and avoid desegregation, led to segregated schools. Many Black segregated schools were historically under-resourced and overcrowded and had higher teacher turnover rates.”[8] The nearby white schools had empty classrooms and more modern facilities. This inequality sparked widespread community outrage, setting up the part for the educational protest that would define Chicago’s civil rights movement.

The roots of Chicago’s school segregation related to its housing policies. Redlining, the practice by which federal agencies and banks denied loans to Black homebuyers and systematically combined Black families to certain areas of the city’s south and west sides. These neighborhoods were often shown by housing stock, limited public investment, and overcrowding. Due to this policy, school attendance zones were aligned with neighborhood boundaries, these patterns of residential segregation were mirrored with the city’s schools. As historian Matthew Delmont explains in his book, Why Busing Failed, this dynamic drew the attention of federal authorities: “On July 4, 1965, after months of school protest and boycotts,  civil rights groups advocated in Chicago by filing a complaint with the U.S. Office of Education charging that Chicago’s Board of Education violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”[9] This reflected how much intertwined housing and education policies were factors of racial segregation. The connection between where families could live and where their children could attend school showed how racial inequality was brought through everyday administrative decisions, and molding opportunities for generations of black Chicagoans.

These systems, housing, zoning, and education helped maintain a racial hierarchy under local control. Even after federal courts and civil rights organizations pushed for compliance with Brown, Chicago’s officials argued that their schools reflect demographic reality rather than discriminatory intent. This argument shows how city planners, developers, and school administrators collaborated. School segregation was not a shift from southern style Jim Crow, but a defining feature of North governance.

Resistance and Exposure

Chicago’s struggle with school segregation was not submissive. Legal challenges and community activism were tools in confronting inequalities. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed many lawsuits to challenge these policies and targeted the districts that violated the state’s education law. Parents and students organized boycotts and protests and wanted to draw attention to the injustices. Sugrue notes, “the stories of northern school boycotts are largely forgotten. Grassroots boycotts, led largely by mothers, inspired activists around the country to demand equal education”1.  The boycotts were not symbolic but strategic; community driven actions targeted at the system’s resistance to change. These movements represented an assertion of power from communities that had to be quiet by discriminatory policies. Parents, especially black mothers, soon became figures in these campaigns, using their voices, and organizing ways to demand responsibility from school boards and city officials. Their actions represented the change that would not come straight from the courtrooms, but from the people affected by injustice. The boycotts interrupted the normal school system and forced officials to listen to the demands for equal education. 

Danns emphasizes the range of activism during this period, writing in Chicago High School Students’ Movement for Quality Public Education: “in the early 1960’s, local and prominent civil rights organizations led a series of protests for school desegregation. These efforts included failed court cases, school boycotts, and sit-ins during superintendent Benjamin Willis administration, all which led to negligible school desegregation”[10]. Despite the limited success of these efforts, the activism of the 1960’s was important for exposing the morals of northern liberalism, and the continuing of racial inequalities outside the South. Student-led protests and communities organizing, not only challenged the policies of the Chicago Board of Education but also influenced the new generation for young people to see education as a main factor in the struggle for civil rights.

Legal tactics were critical in enforcing agreements. An article from the NAACP Evening Star writes, “on the basis of an Illinois statute which states that state-aid funds may be withheld from any school district that segregated based on race or color.” [11]The withholding of state funds applied pressure on resistant boards, showing that legal leverage could have consequences. When the board attempted to deny black students’ admission, the NAACP intervened.  In the newspaper “Evening Star”, They reported, “Although the board verbally refused to admit negro students and actually refused to do so when Illinois students applied for admission, when the board realized that the NAACP was going to file suit to withhold state-aid funds, word was sent to each student who had applied that they should report to morning classes.” [12]This shows how legal and financial pressure became one of the effective ways for enforcing desegregation. The threat of losing funds forced the school boards to work with the integration orders, highlighting the appeals were inadequate to undo the system of discrimination. The NAACP’s strategy displayed the importance of defense with legal enforcement, using the courts and states’ statutes to hold them accountable. This illustrated that the fight for educational equality required not only the protest, but also the legal base to secure that justice was to happen. This collaboration of legal action and grassroots mobilization reflects the strategy that raised both formal institutions and community power, showing the northern resistance to desegregation was far from being unchanged.

Long-Term Consequences

Chicago’s segregated schools had long-lasting effects on Black students, particularly through inequalities in the education system. Schools in Black neighborhoods were often overcrowded, underfunded, and provided fewer academic resources than their white counterparts. These disparities limited educational opportunities and shaped students’ futures. The lack of funding meant that schools could no longer afford placement courses, extracurricular programs, or even resources for classrooms, this shaped a gap in the quality of education between and black and white students. Black students in these kinds of environments were faced with educational disadvantages, but also less hope on their future.

Desegregation advocates sought to address both inequality and social integration. Danns explains, “Advocates of school desegregation looked to create integration by putting students of different races into the same schools. The larger goal was an end to inequality, but a by-product was that students would overcome their stereotypical ideas of one another, learn to see each other beyond race, and even create interracial friendships”4. While the ideal of desegregation included fostering social understanding, the reality of segregated neighborhoods and schools often hindered these outcomes. Even when legal policies aimed to desegregate schools, social and economic blockades continued to bring separation. Many white families moved to suburban districts to avoid integration. This created more classrooms to be racially diverse and left many of the urban schools attended by students of color.

The larger society influenced students’ experiences inside schools, despite efforts to create inclusive educational spaces. Danns explains, “In many ways, these schools were affected by the larger society; and tried as they might. Students often found it difficult to leave their individual, parental, or community views outside the school doors”9 Even when students developed friendships across racial and ethnic lines, segregated boundaries persisted: “Segregated boundaries remained in place even if individuals had made friends with people of other racial and ethnic groups”4. The ongoing influence of social norms and expectations meant that schools were not blinded by the racial tensions that existed outside their walls. While the teachers and administration may have tried to bring a more integrated environment, the racial hierarchies and prejudices in the community often influenced the students’ interactions. These hurdles were not always visible, but they shaped the actions within the school in fine ways. Despite the efforts at inclusion, the societal context of segregation remained challenging, and limited the integration and equality of education.

Beyond the social barriers, the practical issue of overcrowding continued to affect education. Carl highlights this concern, quoting Washington: “In interest, Washington stated that the issue ‘is not “busing,” it is freedom of choice. Parents must be allowed to move their children from overcrowded classrooms. The real issue is quality education for all’5. The focus on “freedom of choice” underscores that structural inequities, rather than simple policy failures, were central to the ongoing disparities in Chicago’s schools.

Overcrowding in urban schools was a deeper root to inequality. Black neighborhoods were often left with underfunded and overcrowded schools, while the white schools had smaller classes, and more resources. The expression of “freedom of choice” was meant to show that parents in marginalized communities should all have the same educational opportunity as the wealthier neighborhoods. However, this freedom was limited by residential segregation, unequal funding, and barriers that restricted many within the public school system.

The long-term impact of segregation extended beyond academics into the social and psychological lives of Black students. Segregation reinforced systemic racism and social divisions, contributing to limited upward mobility, economic inequality, and mistrust of institutions. Beyond the classroom, these affects shaped how the black students viewed themselves and where they stand in society. Psychologically, this often resulted in lower self-esteem and no academic motivation. Socially, segregation limited interactions between the different racial groups, and formed stereotypes. Overtime, these experiences came from a cycle in the issue of educational and government institutions, as black communities struggled with inequalities continuously.

  Black students were unprepared for the realities beyond their segregated neighborhoods, “Some Black participants faced a rude awakening about the world outside their high schools. Their false sense of security was quickly disrupted in the isolated college towns they moved to, where they met students who had never had access to the diversity they took for granted”9. This contrast between the relative diversity within segregated urban schools and the other environments illustrates how deeply segregation shaped expectations, socialization, and identity formation.

Even after desegregation policies were implemented, disparities persisted in access to quality education. Danns observes that, decades later, access to elite schools remained unequal: “After desegregation ended, the media paid attention to the decreasing spots available at the city’s top schools for Black and Latino students. In 2018, though Whites were only 10 percent of the Chicago Public Schools population, they had acquired 23 percent of the premium spots at the top city schools”7. This statistic underscores the enduring structural and systemic inequalities in the educational system. These inequalities show how racial privilege and access to resources favored by certain groups and disadvantaged others. Segregation has taken new ways, through economic and residential patterns rather than laws. This highlights the policy limitations, and brings out the need for more social, economic, and institutional change to achieve the goal of educational equality.

Segregation not only restricted access to academic resources but also had broader psychological consequences. By systematically limiting opportunities and reinforcing racial hierarchies, segregated schooling contributed to feelings of marginalization and diminished trust in public institutions. The experience of navigating a segregated school system often left Black students negotiating between a sense of pride in their communities and the constraints imposed by discriminatory policies. The lasting effects of these psychological scars were there long after segregation ended. The pain from decades of separation made it hard for many black families to believe in change that brought equality. Segregation was not an organized injustice, but also an emotional one; shaping how generations of students understood their worth, and connection to a system that let them down before.

The structural and social consequences of segregation were deeply intertwined. Overcrowded and underfunded schools have diminished educational outcomes, which in turn limit economic and social mobility. Social and psychological barriers reinforced these disparities, creating a cycle that affected multiple generations. Yet the activism, legal challenges, and community efforts described earlier demonstrate that Black families actively resisted these constraints, fighting for opportunities and equality. Their fight not only challenged the system’s injustice, but also laid a foundation for more civil rights reforms, and influencing future movements.

By examining Chicago’s segregation in the context of broader northern and national trends, it becomes clear that local policies and governance played an outsized role in shaping Black students’ experiences. While southern segregation was often codified in law, northern segregation relied on policy, zoning, and administrative practices to achieve similar results. The long-term impact on Chicago’s Black communities reflects the consequences of these forms of institutionalized racism, emphasizing the importance of both historical understanding and ongoing policy reform.

Conclusion

Chicago’s school segregation was not accidental or demographic, it was a product of housing, political and administrative decisions designed to preserve racial separation. The city’s leaders made a system that mirrored the thinking behind Jim Crow Laws and its legal framework, making northern segregation more challenging to see. Through policies made in bureaucratic language, Chicago Public Schools and city officials made sure that children got unequal education for decades.

The legacy of Chicago’s segregation exposes the character of educational inequality. Although activists, parents, and students fought to expose the challenges and the discrimination they created in the mid-twentieth century to continue to shape educational output today. Understanding the intentional design behind Chicago’s segregation is essential to understanding the persistence racial inequalities that defines American schooling. It is also a call to action reformers today to confront the historical and structural forces that have made these disparities. The fight for equitable education is not just about addressing the present-day inequalities but also dismantling the policies and systems that were built with the purpose of maintaining racial separation. The struggle for equality in education remains unfinished, and by acknowledging the choices that lead to the situation can be broken down by structures that continue to limit opportunities for future generations.

References

Primary Sources

Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Oct. 23, 1963. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1963-10-23/ed-1/.

Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Oct. 22, 1963. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1963-10-22/ed-1/.

Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Sep. 8, 1962. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1962-09-08/ed-1/.

Naacp Legal Defense and Educational Fund. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Records: Subject File, -1968; Schools; and States; Illinois; School desegregation reports, 1952 to 1956, undated. – 1956, 1952. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mss6557001591/.

The Robbins eagle. (Robbins, IL), Sep. 10, 1960. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn2008060212/1960-09-10/ed-1/.

The Key West citizen. (Key West, FL), Jul. 9, 1963. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83016244/1963-07-09/ed-1/.

Secondary Sources

Carl, Jim. “Harold Washington and Chicago’s Schools between Civil Rights and the Decline of the New Deal Consensus, 1955-1987.” History of Education Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2001): 311–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/369199.

Dionne Danns. 2020. Crossing Segregated Boundaries: Remembering Chicago School Desegregation. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a82738b5-aa61-339b-aa8a-3251c243ea76.

Danns, Dionne. “Chicago High School Students’ Movement for Quality Public Education, 1966-1971.” The Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (2003): 138–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3559062.

Danns, Dionne. “Northern Desegregation: A Tale of Two Cities.” History of Education Quarterly 51, no. 1 (2011): 77–104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25799376.

Matthew F. Delmont; Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation

Philip T. K. Daniel. “A History of the Segregation-Discrimination Dilemma: The Chicago Experience.” Phylon (1960-) 41, no. 2 (1980): 126–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/274966.

Philip T. K. Daniel. “A History of Discrimination against Black Students in Chicago Secondary Schools.” History of Education Quarterly 20, no. 2 (1980): 147–62. https://doi.org/10.2307/367909.

Paul R. Dimond. 2005. Beyond Busing: Reflections on Urban Segregation, the Courts, and Equal Opportunity. [Pok. ed.]. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=76925a4a-743d-3059-9192-179013cceb31.

Thomas J. Sugrue. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten struggle for Civil Right in the North. Random House: NY.

[1] Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008),

[2] Philip T. K. Daniel, “A History of the Segregation-Discrimination Dilemma: The Chicago Experience,” Phylon 41, no. 2 (1980): 126–36.

[3]Paul R. Dimond, Beyond Busing: Reflections on Urban Segregation, the Courts, and Equal Opportunity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005)

  1. [4]Dionne Danns, Crossing Segregated Boundaries: Remembering Chicago School Desegregation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020)

[5] Jim Carl, “Harold Washington and Chicago’s Schools between Civil Rights and the Decline of the New Deal Consensus, 1955–1987,” History of Education Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2001): 311–43.

[6] The Robbins Eagle (Robbins, IL), September 10, 1960,

[7]   The New York Times, “Fight on the Floor Ruled out,” July 27, 1960, 1.

[8] Dionne Danns, “Northern Desegregation: A Tale of Two Cities,” History of Education Quarterly 51, no. 1 (2011): 77–104.

[9] Matthew F. Delmont, Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).

[10] Dionne Danns, “Chicago High School Students’ Movement for Quality Public Education, 1966–1971,” Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (2003): 138–50.

[11] NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Subject File: Schools; States; Illinois; School Desegregation Reports, 1952–1956, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,

[12] Evening Star (Washington, DC), September 8, 1962,

Camden’s Public Schools and the Making of an Urban “Lost Cause”

Camden’s Public Schools and the Making of an Urban “Lost Cause”

Noelle Cascarelli

In modern-day America, there is perhaps no city quite as infamous as Camden, New Jersey. A relatively-small urban community situated along the banks of the Delaware River, directly across from the sprawling, densely-populated urban metropolis of Philadelphia, in any other world, Camden would likely be a niche community, familiar only to those in the immediate surrounding area. However, the story of Camden is perhaps one of the greatest instances of institutional collapse and urban failure in modern America, akin to the catastrophes that befell communities such as Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey throughout the mid-twentieth century.

Once an industrial juggernaut, housing powerful manufacturing corporations such as RCA Victory and the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden was perhaps one of the urban communities most integral to the American war effort and eventual victory in the Pacific Theatre in World War II. However, in the immediate aftermath of the war, Camden experienced significant decline, its once-prosperous urban hub giving way to a landscape of disinvestment, depopulation, and despair. By the late twentieth century  – specifically the 1980s and 1990s – Camden had devolved into a community wracked by poverty, crime, and drug abuse, bearing the notorious label “Murder City, U.S.A.” – a moniker which characterized decades of systemic inequity and institutional discrimination as a fatalistic narrative, presenting Camden as a city beyond saving, destined for failure. However, Camden’s decline was neither natural nor inevitable but rather, was carefully engineered through public policy. Through a calculated and carefully-measured process of institutional segregation and racial exclusion, state and city lawmakers took advantage of Camden’s failing economy and evaporating job market to confine communities of color to deteriorating neighborhoods, effectively denying them access to the educational and economic opportunities that had been afforded to white suburbanites in the surrounding area.

This paper focuses chiefly on Camden’s educational decline and inequities, situating the former within a broader historical examination of postwar urban America. Utilizing the historiographical frameworks of Arnold Hirsch, Richard Rothstein, Thomas Sugrue, and Howard Gillette, this research seeks to interrogate and illustrate how segregation and suburbanization functioned as reinforcements of racial inequity, and how such disenfranchisement created the perfect storm of educational failure in Camden’s public school network. The work of these scholars demonstrates that Camden’s neighborhoods, communities, and schools were intentionally structured to contain, isolate, and devalue communities and children of color, and that these trends were not unintended byproducts of natural spatial migration nor economic development. Within this context, it is clear that public education in the city of Camden did not simply mirror urban segregation, but rather institutionalized it as schools became both a reflection and reproduction of the city’s racial geography, working to entrench the divisions drawn by policymakers and real estate developers into a pervasive force present in all facets of life and human existence in Camden.

In examining the influence of Camden’s segregation on public education, this study argues that the decline of the city’s school system was not merely a byproduct, but an engine of institutional urban collapse. The racialized inequitable geography of public schooling in Camden began first as a willful and intentional byproduct of institutional disenfranchisement and administrative neglect, but quickly transformed into a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, as crumbling school buildings and curricular inequalities became manifestations of policy-driven failure, and narratives of students of color as “inferior” were internalized by children throughout the city. Media portrayals of the city’s school system and its youth, meanwhile, transformed these failures into moral statements and narratives, depicting Camden’s children and their learning communities as symbols of inevitable dysfunction rather than victims of institutional exclusion. Thus, Camden’s transformation into the so-called “Murder Capital of America” was inseparable from the exclusionary condition of the city’s public schools, as they not only bore witness to segregation, but also became its most visible proof and worked to inform fatalistic narratives of the city and moral character of its residents.

Historiography

            Historians of postwar America have long since established an understanding of racial and socioeconomic as essential to the development of the modern American urban and suburban landscape, manufactured and carefully reinforced throughout the twentieth century by the nation’s political and socioeconomic elite. Foundational studies include Arnold Hirsch’s “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago” (1983) and Richard Rothstein’s 1977 text, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America serve to reinforce such traditional understandings of postwar urban redevelopment and suburban growth, situating the latter as the direct result of institutional policy, rather than mere byproducts and results of happenstance migration patterns.[1] In The Color of Law, Rothstein explores the role of federal and state political institutions in the codification of segregation through intergenerational policies of redlining, mortgage restrictions, and exclusionary patterns in the extension of mortgage insurance to homeowners along racial lines. In particular, Rothstein focuses on the Federal Housing Administration’s creation of redlining maps, which designated majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods as high-risk “red zones,” effectively denying residents from these communities home loans, thus intentionally erecting barriers to intergenerational wealth accumulation through homeownership in suburban communities such as Levittown, Pennsylvania.[2]

            Hirsch’s “The Making of the Second Ghetto” echoes this narrative of urban segregation as manufactured, primarily through the framework of his “second ghetto” thesis. Conducting a careful case study of Chicago through this framework, Hirsch argues that local municipalities, urban developers/planners, and the business elite of Chicago worked in tandem to enact policies of “domestic containment,” wherein public housing projects were weaponized against Black and Hispanic communities to reinforce racial segregation throughout the city. Utilizing public housing as an anchor rather than tool of mobility, Chicago’s socioeconomic and political elite effectively conspired at the institutional level with one another to confine Black Chicagoans to closely-regulated low-income communities, devaluing land and property values in these areas whilst zoning more desirable land for redevelopment and suburban growth, thereby manually raising housing and movement costs to a level that Black Americans were simply unable to afford due to the aforementioned devaluation of their own communities as well as generational barriers to wealth accumulation.[3] Chris Rasmussen’s “Creating Segregation in an Era of Integration” applies such narratives to a close investigation of New Brunswick, New Jersey, particularly in regards to educational segregation, investigating how city authorities utilized similar institutional frameworks of racial separation to confine students to segregated schools and resist integration (school zoning, prioritization of white communities and schools for development, and segregationist housing placements), working off of the existing community segregation detailed by the work of Rothstein and Hirsch. [4]

            Working in tandem with historical perspectives of segregation as integral to the development of suburban America and subsequent urban decline, historians have also identified disinvestment as a critical economic process integral to the exacerbation of urban inequality, and eventual decay. Beginning in the postwar era, specifically in the aftermath of World War II and suburban development, industrial urban communities faced significant shortages in employment in the manufacturing sectors, as corporations began to outsource their labor to overseas and suburban communities, often following the migration of white suburbanites. Robert Beauregard’s Voices of Decline: The Post-War Fate of U.S. Cities diverges from the perspectives of Hirsch and Rothstein, citing declining employment opportunities and urban disinvestment as the most important factor in the decline of urban America on a national scale. Beauregard argues that by framing the disinvestment of urban wartime industrial juggernauts such as Newark, Camden, and Detroit as an “inevitability” in the face of rapid deurbanization and the growth of suburban America, policymakers at the national and local levels portrayed urban decline as a natural process, as opposed to a deliberate conspiracy to strip employment opportunities and the accumulation of capital from urban communities of color, even before suburbanization began to occur on a large scale.[5] Thomas Sugrue’s Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit also adheres to this perspective, situating economic devastation in the context of the development of racially-exclusive suburban communities, thereby working to tie existing scholarship and the multiple perspectives expressed here together, crafting a comprehensive narrative of urban decline in mid-twentieth century America as recurrent in nature, a cycle of unemployment, abject poverty, and a lack of opportunity that was reinforced by public policy and social programs that in theory, were supposed to alleviate such burdens.[6]

            Ultimately, while these sources focus on differing aspects of urban decline, they all work in tandem with one another to allow for a greater, comprehensive portrait of the causes of urban decay in postwar America, throughout the twentieth century. From deindustrialization to segregation and its influence on disparities in education, these sources provide absolutely essential context for an in-depth examination of the specific case study of Camden, New Jersey both in regards to the city itself, but also its public education system. While these sources may not all cite the specific example of Camden, the themes and trends identified each ring true and featured prominently in the story of Camden throughout this period.

            However, this paper will function as a significant divergence from such pre-existing literature, positioning the failure of public education in Camden as a key factor in the city’s decline, rather than a mere byproduct. A common trend present in much of the scholarship discussed above is that educational failure is examined not as a contributing root to Camden’s decline (and certainly not an important one, when education is briefly discussed in this context), but rather as a visible, tangible marker of urban decay in the area. While this paper does not deny the fact that failures in education are certainly rooted in fundamental inequity in urban spaces and broader social failings, it instead seeks to position Camden’s failing education state as not only a result of  urban decline, but as a contributor – specifically by engaging in a discussion of how educational failure transformed narratives around Camden as a failed urban community, beyond help and destined for ruin. In doing so, this paper advances a distinct argument: that Camden’s educational collapse must be understood not merely as evidence of urban decline, but as a foundational force that actively shaped—and in many ways intensified—the narrative of Camden as a city fated for failure.

Suburban Exodus and the Collapse of Urban Schooling

Prior to launching into an exploration of Camden’s public schooling collapse and the influence of such failures of institutional education on the city’s reputation and image, it is important to first establish a clear understanding of the context of such shortcomings.  Due to this paper’s focus specifically on the institutional failure of Camden’s public schooling system, and how such failures shaped perceptions around the city as an urban lost cause, this section will focus primarily on rising rates of racial segregation in the mid-twentieth century, both within city limits and beyond, specifically in regards to Camden County’s sprawling network of suburban communities. While the factors of deindustrialization, economic failure, and governmental neglect absolutely do factor into the creation of an urban environment situated against educational success, racial segregation was chiefly responsible for the extreme disparities found in educational outcomes through the greater Camden region, and is most relevant to this paper’s discussion of racialized narratives of inevitable urban failure that proved to be so pervasive on a national scale regarding Camden, both within the mid-to-late twentieth century and into the present day.

Such trends date back to massive demographic transitions of the pre–World War II era was the Great Migration – the mass movement of Black Americans to northern industrial cities. Drawn by the promise of stable employment and the prospect of greater freedom and equality than was available in the Jim Crow South, millions of migrants relocated to urban centers along the Northeastern seaboard. Camden, New Jersey, was among these destinations, attracting a growing Black population throughout the early twentieth century due to its concentration of manufacturing giants such as RCA Victor, the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, and Campbell’s Soup.[7] With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939—and especially following the United States’ entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor—industrial production in Camden surged. The city soon emerged as a vital hub of wartime manufacturing and domestic production, cementing its status as a key center of American industrial might.

As a direct result of its industrial growth and expanding wartime economy, Camden continued to attract both Black Americans and new immigrant populations, many of whom were of Latino descent. Among these groups were large numbers of Stateside Puerto Ricans, continuing a trend of immigration dating back to the 1917 extension of U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans.[8] Motivated by many of the same factors as Black migrants—chiefly the pursuit of steady employment and improved living conditions—these communities helped shape Camden into a diverse and vibrant urban center. The city’s population of color expanded rapidly during this period, its growth driven by wartime prosperity and the allure of industrial opportunity.

Following American victory in the Pacific and the end of World War II, Camden continued to experience rapid economic growth, although tensions arose between the city’s residents during this period along racial-ethnic lines. With the common American enemy of Japan and the Nazis firmly removed from the picture, hostilities began to turn inwards, and racial tensions skyrocketed, especially in the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. As historian Chriss Rasmussen writes in “Creating Segregation in the Era of Integration: School Consolidation and Local Control in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965-1976”, “While Brown and the ensuing civil rights movement pointed toward racial integration, suburbanization forestalled racial equality by creating and reinforcing de facto segregation. As many whites moved to the suburbs, blacks and Latinos remained concentrated in New Jersey’s cities.”[9] Thus, as Black Americans increasingly emerged victorious in the fight against racial injustice and began to accumulate more and more rights and legal protections, city-dwelling white Americans grew increasingly fearful and resentful, spurring a mass exodus from urban population centers – including Camden. Drawn by federally backed mortgages, the expansion of highways, and racially exclusive housing policies,[10] white residents moved to neighboring suburbs such as Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, and Pennsauken, while structural barriers effectively excluded Black and Latino residents from the same opportunities. Leaving for the suburbs in droves, white residents fled from Camden, taking significant wealth and capital, as well as major business with them, thus weakening the city’s financial base and leaving workers—particularly people of color—vulnerable to unemployment.[11]

Public and private institutions increasingly withdrew resources from neighborhoods perceived as declining or racially changing and banks engaged in redlining, denying mortgages and loans to residents in nonwhite neighborhoods, while city budgets prioritized the needs of more affluent suburban constituencies over struggling urban areas.[12] Businesses and developers often chose to invest in suburban communities where white families were relocating, rather than in Camden itself, creating a feedback loop of declining property values, eroding tax revenue, and worsening public services. As historian Robert Beauregard writes in Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities, “…while white middle-class and young working-class households had resettled in suburban areas, elderly and minority and other low-income households remained in the central cities. This increased the demand for basic public services (e.g. education) while leaving city governments with taxpayers having lower earnings and less property to tax.”[13] Thus, Camden residents left behind within the confines of the city became increasingly dependent on social welfare programs, which local and state governments began to fund less and less. This combination of economic retrenchment, racialized perceptions of neighborhood “desirability,” and policy-driven neglect fueled a cycle of disinvestment that disproportionately affected communities of color, leaving the city structurally disadvantaged.[14]

Concerns about racial integration in neighborhoods and schools also motivated many families to leave, as they sought communities aligned with their social and economic preferences. Such demographic change was rapid, and by 1950 approximately 23.8 percent of Camden City’s population was nonwhite.[15] While that figure may not seem extreme to the modern American, an individual likely familiar with diverse communities and perspectives, it is particularly shocking when placed in the context of Camden’s surrounding suburbs: by 1950, the nonwhite population of Pennsauken was a mere 4.5 percent,  2.1 percent in Haddonfield, and an even lower 1.9 percent in Cherry Hill.[16] These figures in particular serve as an exemplary demonstration as to the cyclical nature of segregation in the educational sector within the state of New Jersey, contextualizing twentieth century segregation not as a unique occurrence, but rather a continuation of historical patterns. In the nineteenth century, the majority of the state’s schools were segregated along racial lines, and in 1863, New Jersey’s state government directly sanctioned the segregation of public school districts statewide. While such decisions would ultimately be reversed in 1881, active opposition to integration remained into the twentieth century, particularly within elementary and middle school education. For example, a 1954 study found that New Jersey schools, both historically and actively, “…had more in common with states below than above…” the Mason-Dixon line. Most notably however, by 1940, the state had more segregated schools than at any period prior to the passing of explicit anti-segregation legislation in 1881.[17] Thus, it is evident that the state of Camden’s schools in the mid-twentieth century is not an isolated incident, but rather indicative of the cyclical nature of racial separation and disenfranchisement throughout the state of New Jersey in an educational context.

These demographic and economic shifts had profound implications for Camden’s schools, which now served largely Black and Latino student populations. In particular, Blaustein’s work proves particularly valuable in demonstrating the catastrophic impacts of white flight on Camden’s schools, as well as the irreversible harm inflicted on students of color as a result of institutional failures in education. Writing in a 1963 report to then-President John F. Kennedy’s – a cautious supporter of the Civil Rights Movement – Civil Rights Commission, notable civil rights lawyer Albert P. Blaustein establishes a clear portrait of the declining state of Camden’s public schooling system, as well as the everyday issues facing students and educators alike in the classroom. In delivering a scathing report on neighborhood segregation within the city in Camden, as demonstrated by demographic data regarding the race/ethnicity of students enrolled in public education across the Camden metropolitan area, Blaustein writes:

Northeast of Cooper River is the area known as East Camden, an area with a very small Negro population. For the river has served as a barrier against intracity population…Two of the four junior high schools are located here: Davis, which is 4.0 percent Negro and Veterans Memorial which is 0.2 percent Negro. Also located in East Camden are six elementary schools, four of which are all-white and the other two of which have Negro percentages of 1.3 percent and 19.7 percent…Central Camden, on the other hand, is largely Negro. Thus, the high percentage of Negroes in Powell (100.0 percent), Sumner (99.8 percent), Fetters (91.6 percent), Liberty (91.2 percent), and Whittier (99.1 percent), etc.[18]

Based on the data provided here by Blaustein, it is simply impossible to argue that racial segregation did not occur in Camden. Additionally, it becomes quite clear that while much discussion regarding Camden public schools and wide demographic changes in the city as a whole focuses on the movement of white residents to suburban areas, racial segregation and stratification absolutely did occur within the city, thus worsening educational opportunities and learning outcomes for Camden’s students of color even more.

            However, Blaustein does not end his discussion with segregation amongst student bodies, but rather extends his research even further to a close examination of racial/ethnic compositions of school leadership, including teachers, administrators, and school board members, yielding similar results. For example, according to his work, the Fetters School, possessing a student body of 91.6 percent Black students employed nine white teachers and nine Black teachers in 1960, but two white teachers and sixteen Black teachers in 1963. Even more shockingly, Central School, composed of 72.9 percent Black students, employed only white teachers in 1955. By 1963, just nine years later, this number had completely reversed and the school employed all Black educators.[19] Thus, Blaustein’s investigation of variances in Camden public schools’ racial composition reveal that this issue was not simply limited to education nor exclusionary zoning practices, but was rather an insidious demographic trend which had infested all areas of life in Camden, both within education and outside of classrooms. In ensuring that Black students were only taught by Black teachers and white students by white teachers, education in Camden was incredibly nondiverse, eliminating opportunities for cross-racial understanding nor exposure to alternative perspectives, thereby working to keep Black and white communities completely separate not just in the facets of residence and education, but also in interaction and socialization.

Manifestations of Failure in Camden Public Schools

            With the existence of racial segregation both within Camden as well as the city’s surrounding area clearly established, we can now move to an exploration of inequalities in public education within the city. Perhaps one of the most visible and apparent markers of inequalities in public education in Camden can be found in school facilities and buildings. The physical conditions in which children of color were schooled were grossly and completely outdated, especially in comparison to the facilities provided to white children, both inside and outside of the city of Camden. For example, as of 1963, there were six specific public schools that had been cited as in dire need of replacement and/or renovation by Camden’s local legislative board, the vast majority of which were located in segregated communities: Liberty School (1856, 91.2% Black student population), Cooper School (1874, 30.7% Black student population), Fetters School (1875, 91.6% Black student population), Central School (1877, 72.9% Black student population), Read School (1887, 32.0% Black student population), and finally, Bergen School (1891, 45.6% Black student population).[20] Of the schools cited above, approximately half of the buildings that had been deemed by the city of Camden as unfit for usage and nonconducive to education were occupied by majority-Black student populations (Liberty, Fetters, and Central), whereas Bergen School was split just short of evenly between Black and white low-income students.

Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that these figures only account for the absolute worst of Camden’s schools, such trends in inadequate school buildings and facilities occurred throughout the city, in accordance with the general quality of infrastructure and housing present in each neighborhood they were located. In other words, while the data above only references a very small sample size of Camden’s schools, the trends reflected here (specifically, in the intentional zoning of Black students to old, run-down schooling facilities) serve as a microcosm of Camden’s public schools, wherein students of color were intentionally confined to older schools and run-down facilities.

  Education researcher Jonathan Kozol expands on the condition of school facilities in Camden’s disenfranchised communities in his widely-influential book, Savage Inequalities. Written in 1991, Kozol’s work serves as a continuation of Blaustein’s discussion on the failing infrastructure of public education in Camden, providing an updated portrait into the classrooms serving the city’s poorest communities. Kozol pulls no punches in a truly visceral recollection of his visit to Pyne Point Middle School, writing:

…inside, in battered, broken-down, crowded rooms, teem the youth of Camden, with dysfunctional fire alarms, outmoded books and equipment, no sports supplies, demoralized teachers, and the everpresent worry that a child is going to enter the school building armed.[21]

Ultimately, it is inarguable that the physical quality of public schools and educational facilities in Camden was incredibly unequal, reflecting broader residential trends. Where poor, minority-majority neighborhoods experienced a degradation of property values and lived in dilapidated areas of the cities as a direct result of redlining and other racist housing policies, so too were children of color in Camden zoned into old, crumbling school buildings that by this time, barely remained standing, effectively stripping them of the same educational resources and physical comforts provided to white students both in the city and its neighboring suburbs.

            Such inequalities were also present in records of student achievement and morale. Educated in barely-standing school buildings overseen by cash-strapped school districts, students of color in Camden’s poor communities were not afforded nearly the same learning opportunities nor educational resources as white students in the area. In Camden and Environs, Blaustein cites Camden superintendent Dr. Anthony R. Catrambone’s perspective on inequalities in education, writing, “…pupils from Sumner Elementary School (99.8 percent Negro) who transfer to Bonsall Elementary School (50.3 percent Negro) ‘feel unwanted, and that they are having educational problems not experienced by the Negroes who have all their elementary training at Bonsall’ [Catrambone’s words].”[22]

            Thus, it is evident that inequalities in schooling facilities and instruction not only resulted in a considerable achievement gap between students in segregated and integrated communities, but also that such inequalities were clear and demonstrable, even to students themselves at the elementary level. Catrambone’s observation that students from Sumner felt “unwanted” and viewed themselves as struggling, suggests that students in Camden’s segregated neighborhoods internalized the city’s structural inequality, viewing themselves as lesser than their white/integrated peers both in intellectual capacity and personal character. Such perspectives, reinforced by the constant presence of systemic discrimination along racial lines as well as crumbling school facilities and housing units, became deeply entrenched in minds and hearts of Camden’s youth, thereby creating trends of educational failure that were cyclical in nature, reinforced both externally by social structures and institutions as well as internally within segregated communities of color.

            Similarly, dysfunction soon became synonymous with segregated schools and low-income communities of color at the institutional level. School administrators and Boards of Education began to expect failure of students of color, stripping away any opportunity for such schools to prove otherwise. For example, Camden’s school leadership often designated rigorous curriculums and college-preparatory courses to majority-white schools, neglecting to extend the same opportunities to minority-majority districts. For example, in reporting on administrative conversations on the potential integration of Camden High School in 1963, Blaustein observes:

The maintenance of comprehensive academic tracks was recognized by administration as dependent on white students, implying students of color alone were not expected to sustain them: ‘if these pupils [white college preparatory students from the Cramer area] were transferred to Woodrow Wilson [a majority-Black high school located in the Stockton neighborhood], Camden High would be almost entirely a school for business instruction and training in industrial arts.[23]

It is vital to first provide context as to Blaustein’s usage of the terms “business instruction” and “industrial arts.” In utilizing these terms, Blaustein refers primarily to what is referred to as “vocational education” in modern-day America. With this crucial context firmly established, it becomes evident that public educators in early-1960s Camden viewed college education as a racially-exclusive opportunity, to be extended only to white students.

Such attitudes were reflected in the curricular rigor present in Camden’s minority-majority schools which were, to say the least, held to an extremely low standard. The lessons designed for children of color were incredibly simple and non-complex, as schools were treated less as institutions of learning and self-improvement, but rather as detention centers for the city’s disenfranchised youth. As Camden native and historian David Bain writes in the piece Camden Bound, “History surrounds the children of Camden, but they do learn a lot of it in school…Whitman is not read by students in the basic skills curriculum. Few students that I met in Camden High, indeed, had never heard of him.”[24] As such, Black and Hispanic students were effectively set up for failure as compared to white students, viewed as predestined to either not graduate from their primary schooling or to enter lower-paying careers and vocational fields rather than pursue higher education, and opportunities that college afforded students, particularly during this period where college degrees were significantly rarer and highly-valued than in the modern day.

            Thus, it is evident that throughout the mid-twentieth century Camden’s public school system routinely failed Black and Hispanic students. From inequalities in school facilities and curriculum, Camden’s public school system repeatedly communicated to students in segregated areas that they simply were not worth the time and resources afforded to white students, nor possessed the same intellectual capacity as suburban children. Denied quality schools and viewed as predestined high school drop-outs, Camden’s public schools never truly invested in their children, creating an atmosphere of perpetual administrative negligence in improving schools and learning outcomes for the city’s disadvantaged youth. As Blaustein so aptly writes, “‘…the school authorities are against changing the status quo. They want to avoid headaches. They act only when pressures are applied’”.[25]

The Narrative of Inevitability: Camden as a “Lost Cause”

It is clear that such drastic disparities in learning outcomes arose not only out of administrative negligence, but also as a direct result of segregation within the city. While no law affirming segregation was ever passed in New Jersey, it is clear that schools in Camden were completely and unequivocally segregated, and that a hierarchical structure clearly existed in regards to determining which schools and student populations were most supported and prepared for success. Time and time again, educators favored white students and white schools, kicking students of color and their schooling communities to the curb. It is against this backdrop of negligence and resignation that wider narratives around the city of Camden and its youth as “lost causes” beyond any and all help began to emerge.

By the late twentieth century (specifically the 1980s and 1990s), narratives around Camden as a drug and crime-infested urban wasteland began to propagate, rising to a national scale in the wake of increasing gang activity and rapidly-rising crime rates in the area. While public focus centered on the city’s criminal justice department and woefully-inept political system, reporting on the state of Camden’s public schools served to reinforce perceptions of the city as destined for failure and beyond saving, chiefly through local press’ demonization of Camden’s youth. For example, the Courier Post article “Battle being waged to keep youths from crime”, reads, “‘Girls are being raped in schools, drugs are proliferating, alcohol is proliferating, and instead of dealing with it, some parents and administrators are in denial…they insist it’s not happening in their backyard’”.[26] The manner in this author speaks of public schooling in Camden reads as though the city’s schools and places of education were not learning communities, but rather prisons – the students inhabiting these spaces not children, but prisoners, destined to be nothing more than a “thug”.

  Ignoring the city’s long history with racial segregation and redlining, which as established earlier in this paper, clearly resulted not only in disparities in learning outcomes but also caused a deep internalization of institutional failure within many students of color and their learning communities, articles such as this neglect the willingness to truly explore the roots of crime and poverty in Camden, focusing instead on the result of decades of institutional neglect of communities of color, rather than the root cause of these issues. In doing so, media coverage of such failures in Camden removed the burden of responsibility from the city lawmakers and school administrators responsible for abject poverty and educational disparities, instead putting the onus on the communities which were intentionally and perpetually disenfranchised at the institutional level across all aspects of Camden’s sociopolitical network.

Additionally, this article’s veiled assertion of Camden parents as disinterested and uninvested in their children’s success is especially gross and inaccurate. The fact of the matter is that parents and local communities within even the most impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods of Camden had long-lobbied for improvements to public schooling and their communities, concerned chiefly with their children’s futures and opportunities. For example, by the late 1990s, Camden City’s charter network had experienced significant growth, much of its early success owed directly to parents and grassroots organizations devoted to improving the post-schooling opportunities of disadvantaged children. In 1997, over seventeen new charters were approved by the city of Camden, the first opening in September of that year. The LEAP Academy University Charter School was the result of years of political lobbying and relentless advocacy, of which the loudest voices came from parents and community activist groups. Spearheaded by Rutgers University-Camden professor and city native, Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, the LEAP Academy included specific parent action committees, community outreach boards, and sponsored numerous community service events.[27] Thus, this inclusion of virtually one of the only groups truly invested in children of color’s success in Camden alongside the group which repeatedly conspired to confine them to crumbling schools and prepare them only for low-paying occupations is wildly inaccurate and offensive in a historical context, thereby demonstrating how media narratives around Camden and its school system repeatedly disregarded factually-correct reporting, in favor of sensationalized reports on Camden’s struggles, framing schools and city youth as ground zero and progenitors of the wider issues facing the city as a whole.

While community activism was absolutely present across Camden, it is also important to highlight the damaging impact of such negative narratives surrounding the city on its residents. In his book Camden Bound, a literary exploration of the history of Camden and its community, Camden-born historian David Bain highlights the internalization of damaging, sensationalized descriptions of Camden. He writes:

For most of my life, my birthplace, the city of Camden, has been a point of irony, worth a wince and often hasty explanation that though I was born in Camden, we didn’t actually ever live in Camden, but in a succession of pleasant South Jersey suburban towns…As I moved through life…I would write out the name Camden (I’m ashamed to name my shame now) with a shudder.[28]

While Bain’s Camden Bound does relate specifically to his own individual experience and struggle with the acknowledgement of his birthplace in the wake of national infamy, he spends perhaps even more time exploring the current state of the city, as well as the perspectives of current Camden residents. In recounts his most recent visit to Camden, Bain describes nothing short of absolute devastation and complete social blight and urban decay, writing:

Too many newspaper headlines crowd my brain – “Camden Hopes for Release From Its Pain”; “In Struggles of the City, Children Are Casualties”; “Camden Forces Its Suburbs To Ask, What If a City Dies?”; “A Once Vital, Cohesive Community is Slowly, but Not Inevitably, Dying.” And that devastating question from Time: “Who Could Live Here?”…It has been called the poorest city in New Jersey, and some have wondered if it is the poorest in the nation. Adult men and women stand or sit in front of their shabby two- story brick houses, stunned by purposelessness. In abandoned buildings, drug dealers and their customers congregate. On littered sidewalks, children negotiate through broken glass, condoms, and spent hypodermics.[29]

Judging from Bain’s simple description of the sights that he witnessed while driving through Camden, it is evident that Camden’s residents have been burned out by the widely-circulating narratives of the city and its national infamy. The vast majority of residents poverty-stricken and lacking the financial or social capital to create meaningful change for their communities themselves, such headlines and narratives of the city were nothing short of absolutely devastating. Such soul-crushing portrayals signal yet another air of perpetual negligence and resignation by powerful voices, within the media, local politics, and even national government, thus demonstrating a national perception of Camden as “failed”, and were thus internalized by Camden’s residents.

For example, in interviewing Rene Huggins, a community activist and director of the Camden Cultural Center, Bain chiefly relays her frustration with recent state legislation upon the assumption of office by Republican governor Christine Todd Whitman and recent rollbacks of welfare programs, occupational training, and educational funding that had been promised to the city. Speaking on the increasing hopelessness of many city residents, Huggins states, “And on top of all that…we get that headline in Time magazine – ’Who Could Live Here?’ Why not just give us a lot of shovels and bury the place?’”.[30] Such statements, alongside Bain’s experiences of Camden, thus demonstrate that as a direct result of national resignation to the state of Camden and a lack of willingness nor initiative to improve the city (and even more damaging, a removal of resources and social initiatives designed specifically to improve the state of the city), many Camden residents adopted a similar mentality of resignation and shame toward their community, choosing to simply exist with the city’s misery as opposed to creating any real, meaningful change, having been spurned and failed by various powerful sociopolitical institutions and organizations across generations, thereby reinforcing the harmful narratives that had played such a crucial role in the development of such behaviors.

The very article mentioned in ire by Ren Huggins, Kevin Fedarko’s “Who Could Live Here?”, also offers insight into public perceptions of Camden and more specifically, its youth, during the late twentieth-century. Written in 1992, Fedarko postures the city of Camden as a barren wasteland and its inhabitants – predominantly young people and children – as akin to nothing more than prisoners and criminals. For example, Fedarko writes:

The story of Camden is the story of boys who blind stray dogs after school, who come to Sunday Mass looking for cookies because they are hungry, who arm themselves with guns, knives and — this winter’s fad at $400 each — hand grenades. It is the story of girls who dream of becoming hairdressers but wind up as whores, who get pregnant at 14 only to bury their infants.[31]

Fedarko’s description of Camden’s children is extraordinarily problematic, in that it not only treats the city’s youth as a monolithic group, but then proceeds to demonize them en masse. In describing the city’s young people as baselessly sadistic and violent, while neglecting to position rising youth crime rates in the context of historical disenfranchisement nor take a moment and pause to acknowledge that this is not the case for all of the city’s young people, Fedarko’s work only furthers narratives of Camden and its young people as lawless and destined for jail cells rather than degrees. In particular, Fedarko’s description of Camden’s young women as “whores” is especially gross, considering the fact that the people of whom Fedarko speaks are children, thereby applying unnecessary derogatory labels to young women (largely women of color), while failing to acknowledge the true tragedy of Camden and the conditions to which young people are subjected to. In describing the situation of a teenager involved in gang activity, Fedarko also employs similarly disrespectful and dehumanizing language, writing:

…drug posses …use children to keep an eye out for vice- squad police and to ferry drugs across town. Says “Minute Mouse,” a 15- year-old dealer: “I love my boys more than my own family.” Little wonder. With a father in jail and a mother who abandoned him, the Mouse survived for a time by eating trash and dog food before turning to the drug business.[32]

Ultimately, it is evident that during the late twentieth century, specifically the eighties and nineties, narratives surrounding Camden portrayed the city as nothing more than an urban wasteland and lost cause, a sad excuse for urban existence that eschewed its history as a sprawling manufacturing juggernaut. More damaging however, were narratives surrounding the people of Camden (especially youth), who became synonymous with violence and criminal activity, rather than opportunity or potential. In short, media coverage of Camden was concerned chiefly with the concept of an urban space and people in chaos and thus, prioritized the spectacle of Camden’s failures over the historical tragedy of the city, neglecting to situation the former in the context of self-imposed de facto segregation and racialized disenfranchisement.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it cannot be denied that perceptions of Camden’s public education system as failing and its youth as morally debased were absolutely essential to the formulation of “lost cause” narratives regarding the city. In the popular imagination, Camden became synonymous with decay and dysfunction—a city transformed from a thriving industrial hub into what national headlines would later call “Murder City, U.S.A.” However, these narratives of inevitability in truth emerged from the city’s long history with racial segregation, economic turmoil, and administrative educational neglect. Camden’s schools were central to this development, acting as both products and producers of inequity, serving as clear symbols of the failures in public policy, which were later recast as moral shortcomings of disenfranchised communities themselves.

As demonstrated throughout this study, the structural roots of Camden’s failures in public education were grounded in segregation, manufactured by the same redlining maps and exclusionary residency policies that confined families of color to the city’s most desolate neighborhoods, which would also determine the boundaries of their children’s schools. White flight and suburban migration drained Camden of its capital and tax base, instead concentrating such resources in suburban communities whose already-existing affluence was only reinforced by federal mortgage programs and social support. Historical inquiry into urban decline and the state of urban communities in the postwar period have long since emphasized the importance of understanding urban segregation not as a natural social phenomenon, but rather an architectural inequity, extending into every aspect of civic life and education. Camden’s experience confirms this: segregation functioned not only as a physical division of space but as a moral and ideological one, creating the conditions for policymakers and the media to portray the city’s public schools as evidence of cultural pathology rather than systemic betrayal.

By the late twentieth century, these narratives had become fatalistic. Newspaper headlines depicted Camden’s classrooms as sites of chaos and its youth as violent, transforming real inequities into spectacle. The children who bore the weight of these conditions—students of color educated in crumbling buildings and underfunded programs—were cast as perpetrators of their city’s demise rather than its victims. The label “Murder Capital” distilled these complexities into a single, dehumanizing phrase, erasing the structural roots of decline in favor of a narrative that made Camden’s suffering appear inevitable. In doing so, public discourse not only misrepresented the city’s reality but also justified further disinvestment, as policymakers treated Camden’s collapse as a moral failure rather than a product of policy.

However, despite such immense challenges and incredibly damaging narratives that had become so deeply entrenched in the American national psyche regarding the city, Camden and its inhabitants persisted. Refusing to give up on their communities, Camden’s residents, many of whom lacking the influence and capital to create change alone, chose to band together and weather the storm of national infamy. From community activism to political lobbying, Camden’s communities of color demonstrated consistent self-advocacy. Viewing outside aid as perpetually-promised yet never provided, Camden’s communities pooled their resources and invested in their own communities and children, establishing vast charter networks as well as advocating for criminal justice reform and community policing efforts.

While change was slow and seemingly unattainable, Camden has experienced a significant resurgence in the past decade or so. From investment by major corporations and sports organizations (for example, the Philadelphia 76ers’ relocation of their practice facilities and front offices to the Camden Waterfront in 2016) as well as a revitalization of educational access and recruitment of teaching professionals by the Camden Education Fund, the city has slowly begun to reverse trends of decay and decline, pushing back against narratives that had deemed its failure as inevitable and inescapable. Celebrating its first homicide-free summer this year, Camden’s story is tragic, yet far from over. Rather than adhere to the story of persistent institutional failure and disenfranchisement, Camden’s residents have chosen to take charge of the narrative of their home and communities for themselves, changing it to one of perseverance, determination, and strength. In defiance of decades of segregation, disinvestment, and stigma, Camden stands not as America’s “Murder City,” but as its mirror—a testament to how injustice is built, and how, through resilience, effort, and advocacy, it can be torn down.

References

 “The case for charter schools,” Courier Post, March 02, 1997

Bain, David Haward. “Camden Bound.” Prairie Schooner 72, no. 3 (1998): 104–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40637098 

Beauregard, Robert A. Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2003 http://www.123library.org/book_details/?id=112493

Blaustein, Albert P., and United States Commission on Civil Rights. Civil Rights U.S.A.: Public Schools: Cities in the North and West, 1963: Camden and Environs. Washington, DC: United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1964.

Douglas, Davison M. “The Limits of Law in Accomplishing Racial Change: School Segregation in the Pre-Brown North.” UCLA Law Review 44, no. 3 (1997): 677–744.

Fedarko, Kevin. “The Other America.” Time, January 20, 1992. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,974708-3,00.html. 

Gillette, Howard. Camden after the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

Goheen, Peter G., and Arnold R. Hirsch. “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960.” Labour / Le Travail 15 (1985): 234. https://doi.org/10.2307/25140590. 

Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Broadway Books, 1991.

Rasmussen, Chris. “Creating Segregation in the Era of Integration: School Consolidation and Local Control in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965–1976.” History of Education Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2017): 480–514. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26846389

Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law : A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. First edition. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Tantillo, Sara. “Battle being waged to keep youths from crime,” Courier Post, June 8, 1998

Yaffe, Deborah. Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools. New Brunswick, NJ: Rivergate Books, 2007. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=225406

[1] Peter G. Goheen and Arnold R. Hirsch. “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960.” Labour / Le Travail 15 (1985): 234.

[2] Richard Rothstein. The Color of Law : A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. First edition. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

[3] Peter G. Goheen and Arnold R. Hirsch. “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960.” Labour / Le Travail 15 (1985): 234.

[4] Chris Rasmussen. “Creating Segregation in the Era of Integration: School Consolidation and Local Control in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965–1976.” History of Education Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2017): 480–514.

[5] Robert A. Beauregard. Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2003.

[6] Thomas J. Sugrue. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

[7] Howard Gillette, Camden after the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 12–15.

[8] David Howard Bain, “Camden Bound,” Prairie Schooner 72, no. 3 (1998): 104–44.

[9] Chris Rasmussen,. “Creating Segregation in the Era of Integration: School Consolidation and Local Control in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965–1976.” History of Education Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2017): p.487

[10] Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York: Liveright, 2017), 70–75; Gillette, Camden after the Fall, 52–54.

[11] Gillette, Camden after the Fall, 45–50; Bain, “Camden Bound,” 110–12.

[12] Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 35–40.

[13] Beauregard, Robert A. Voices of Decline : The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities. Second edition. New York: Routledge, 2003, 91

[14] Gillette, Camden after the Fall, 50–55; Bain, “Camden Bound,” 120.

[15]Albert P. Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A.: Camden and Environs, report to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, 1963, 22.

[16] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A., 23–24.

[17]Davison M. Douglas, “The Limits of Law in Accomplishing Racial Change: School Segregation in the Pre-Brown North.” UCLA Law Review 44, no. 3 (1997)

[18] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A., 18.

[19] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A., 18.

[20] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A.,

[21] Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities : Children in America’s Schools. New York: Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 1991.

[22] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A., 22.

[23] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A.,

[24] Bain, David Haward. “Camden Bound.” Prairie Schooner 72, no. 3 (1998): 120-121.

[25] Blaustein, Civil Rights U.S.A.,

[26] “Battle being waged to keep youths from crime,” Courier Post, June 8, 1998

[27] Sarah Tantillo, “The case for charter schools,” Courier Post, March 02, 1997

[28] Bain, Camden Bound, 108-109.

[29] Bain, Camden Bound, 111.

[30] Bain, Camden Bound, 119.

[31] Kevin Fedarko, “The Other America,” Time, January 20, 1992

[32] Ibid.

Reimagining AI in Social Studies: Four Educator Archetypes and the Path Forward

Reimagining AI in Social Studies: Four Educator Archetypes and the Path Forward

Andy Szeto

“The notion that having a laptop computer or hand-held device for every student will make her or him smarter, or even more knowledgeable is pedagogically vapid.”
Michael Fullan (Fullan, 2011, p. 15)

Michael Fullan’s 2011 paper Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform offered a powerful caution that still rings true today. Schools often rush to adopt new technology without the deeper instructional shifts needed to make it meaningful. Early in my teaching career, I saw this firsthand with the rollout of interactive whiteboards. The promise was exciting and the investment was significant, but the implementation fell short. Without the right training, support, and connection to instructional goals, many of those boards became little more than digital display tools.  They were not used the way they were intended, and the opportunity to transform teaching practice was largely missed.

We are at another crossroads. Just as interactive whiteboards once promised transformation but too often delivered status quo, AI now arrives with the potential to reshape how students think, write, and engage with civic life. Fullan reminds us that real, lasting change does not come from devices or tools alone. It comes from building instructional capacity, strengthening relationships, and creating coherent systems. In the age of AI, his warning is more relevant than ever. If we adopt these tools without clear purpose or thoughtful pedagogy, we risk repeating old mistakes with even more powerful technology.

A new chapter: AI in the social studies classroom

In 2025, two major federal initiatives signaled a nationwide commitment to integrating generative artificial intelligence into education and educator development. In April, the White House issued Executive Order 14277, Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, which focused on expanding educator capacity and increasing student access to AI tools (Federal Register, 2025). Just months later, it released Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan, a strategy outlining more than 90 actions focused on expanding AI education, supporting teacher training, and ensuring equitable integration across learning environments (White House, 2025). While neither document names social studies directly, their emphasis on “fostering a culture of innovation and critical thinking” (Federal Register, 2025) has clear implications for K–12 social studies classrooms. Guidance from organizations such as the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and Common Sense Media reinforces the need for educators to critically evaluate tools, protect student data, and promote responsible use of generative AI. However, national ambitions alone won’t shape daily classroom practice – teachers will. And to do that effectively, we must start by understanding where each educator is on the journey. Some are skeptical of AI’s role in civic learning. Others are experimenting with basic tools. A few are already transforming their practice in bold, creative ways.

This article introduces a four-archetype framework: Skeptic, Novice, Designer, and Trailblazer, to capture the diverse ways social studies educators are engaging with AI, each reflecting a distinct mindset and stage of instructional readiness. Each archetype is grounded in practical, student-facing classroom examples designed to support critical thinking, historical inquiry, and civic reasoning in an AI-powered world.

Cautious AI skeptic

“I want students to wrestle with complexity—not rely on shortcuts. AI worries me because it might undercut the deep analysis and civic responsibility we’re trying to teach.”

Skeptics approach AI with deep caution, grounded in a firm belief that students should be thinkers, not just content consumers. They worry that AI tools may undercut historical reasoning, obscure authorship, or dilute opportunities for authentic civic learning. For these educators, AI is not neutral. They raise valid questions about equity, surveillance, and how easily confident-sounding misinformation can circulate unchecked. Their hesitation is often grounded in research on how students misinterpret digital content and confuse fluency with accuracy, a concern amplified in recent studies on AI-generated misinformation (Wineburg & Ziv, 2024). Yet even skeptical educators recognize the importance of engaging with these tools critically, so students are not left unprepared.

These activities emphasize critique, caution, and civic responsibility, helping students question AI rather than accept it at face value:

  • Facilitate an activity where students fact-check AI-generated historical claims using vetted primary sources.
  • Guide students to verify an AI-generated historical claim using lateral reading—opening new tabs to cross-check with trusted sources—and reflect on how polished responses can still be misleading (Wineburg & Ziv, 2024).
  • Have students use AI to generate a fake historical image or event description, then analyze it using Common Sense Media’s AI literacy principles to identify signs of manipulation and discuss real-world implications (Common Sense Media, 2025).
  • Use ChatGPT’s Study Mode to help students unpack a dense primary source, then lead a discussion critiquing how the AI framed key ideas and what it overlooked (Sawchuk, 2025).

Curious AI novice

“I’ve tested a few AI tools, but I’m still figuring out how to connect them to real learning, especially sourcing, analysis, and classroom discussion.”

Novices are intrigued by AI and willing to try it, but they’re still figuring out where it fits. Their experimentation often centers around one-off tasks, like generating an image for a warm-up or asking ChatGPT to summarize a reading. While eager to explore, they haven’t yet connected AI use to core social studies practices like sourcing, historical inquiry, or civic discourse. According to Hernholm (2025), even teachers who express curiosity about AI still need structured support, especially when it comes to tools, time, and training. As AI for Education (2024) notes, starting with small activities, like brainstorming prompts or using generative tools for warm-ups, helps build confidence without overwhelming teachers new to AI. These early successes lay the foundation for deeper exploration and help novices envision how AI might eventually align with their instructional goals. Structured tools like MagicSchool AI, Claude, Adobe Express, and NotebookLM give these teachers a way to test ideas in real classrooms while building the capacity to move from occasional use to intentional design. When AI is framed as a way to enhance, not replace, core learning goals, novices begin to shift from curiosity to confidence.

These entry points offer low-risk ways to explore AI tools while building confidence and connection to core social studies practices:

  • Use AI tools like NotebookLM to reorganize historical sources into thematic clusters, then have students analyze how the AI grouped them and evaluate the accuracy and bias of those groupings (Wasik, 2025).
  • Prompt students to use Claude.ai or ChatGPT to generate differing perspectives on a historical event, then evaluate them for bias and omissions.
  • Facilitate a role-play simulation using Character.AI, where students question historical figures and fact-check the responses.
  • Use Adobe Express to co-create civic posters or infographics with AI-generated draft text, then revise for accuracy and tone.

With the right support, tools, time, and professional learning – these educators begin moving from curiosity to confidence.

Intentional AI designer

“AI gives us new ways to simulate civic life, reimagine debate, and engage students in building—and challenging—systems of power and justice.”

Designers integrate AI with purpose. They go beyond surface-level use to embed it into thoughtful lessons that support historical reasoning, civic writing, and student discourse. These educators treat AI as a tool to elevate, not replace, student learning. They maintain instructional control, designing experiences where students use AI to revise, question, and deepen understanding. They are clear about their instructional goals and use AI as a tool to help students engage more deeply with content. Designers are neither dismissive nor blindly enthusiastic. They see the promise of AI, but they also understand its limits.

Recent research supports this balanced mindset. Clark and van Kessel (2024) found that AI-generated lesson materials often reflect embedded assumptions or miss opportunities for meaningful inquiry. They encourage educators to treat AI as a collaborator that needs to be questioned and shaped, not a neutral source. Similarly, Klein (2025) reported that many AI-generated civics lessons lack depth and fail to promote the kind of student thinking social studies demands. Designers are aware of these limitations. That’s why they stay close to their pedagogical aims and use AI as a tool for design, not a substitute for it.

In the classroom, Designers guide students to use AI purposefully: drafting historical arguments, analyzing civic texts, or refining written responses. They help students question AI outputs and compare them to disciplinary thinking models. They use AI to scaffold participation for multilingual learners or struggling writers, while still expecting students to revise, debate, and cite. In short, Designers make AI useful by keeping it anchored in student learning.

These practices use AI intentionally to deepen historical reasoning, support civic discourse, and elevate student writing:

  • Use NotebookLM to create a video overview from source documents, then have students critique its accuracy and revise it to reflect stronger historical thinking (TechCrunch, 2025).
  • Use AI to model civic writing, like letters to elected officials or op-eds, followed by analysis of argument strength and tone.
  • Support multilingual learners by using AI to generate sentence starters, vocabulary scaffolds, or translated prompts (Szeto, 2024a).
  • Ask students to use AI to generate multiple historical perspectives on an event, then evaluate how each aligns with available primary sources and disciplinary thinking (Szeto, 2024b).

Innovative AI trailblazer

 ”AI lets us simulate debates, test civic arguments, and rethink how students engage with the past and present.”

Trailblazers are reimagining what’s possible with AI. They don’t just use tools, they create new experiences where students build, critique, and explore ideas at the intersection of technology and civic life. Their classrooms are laboratories for inquiry, civic action, and reflection. Trailblazers lead boldly but with intention, staying grounded in social studies goals like justice, democracy, and historical thinking.

These educators often lead professional learning, collaborate across content areas, and pilot new strategies. They guide students in building with AI, critiquing its limitations, and using it to examine democracy, memory, and power. They are not reckless with innovation; they’re intentional, equity-focused, and transparent about what AI can and cannot do.

Trailblazers also recognize that students must learn how to ask hard questions of systems, not just generate answers. Projects in their classrooms often blend social studies content with algorithmic thinking, civic action, and ethical reflection. While some of their work pushes the boundaries of what’s typical in a classroom, it remains rooted in the goals of social studies education: inquiry, citizenship, and justice.

These projects invite students to co-create with AI, interrogate systems, and use emerging tools for civic innovation and justice:

  • Lead an AI-powered civic simulation where bots draft policy proposals and students must revise or defend them using constitutional principles
  • Guide students to train their own lightweight LLMs on curated primary sources and analyze how outputs differ from general models
  • Have students investigate algorithmic bias or digital redlining using AI-generated maps or predictive tools and connect their findings to environmental justice or civil rights issues.
  • Have students use AI and local datasets, such as NYC Open Data, to take informed action by proposing policy solutions to real community issues, aligned to social studies standards.

Supporting all educators on the AI journey: A path forward

While archetypes offer a useful lens, sustainable integration of AI in social studies requires system-level support that recognizes where educators are and helps them move forward with clarity and confidence. Below are five key actions for leaders, curriculum teams, and policymakers to consider:

  1. Differentiate professional learning by archetype
    Not every teacher needs the same workshop. Cautious Skeptics benefit from open dialogue on ethics, misinformation, and surveillance. Novices need hands-on time with tools and low-pressure modeling. Designers thrive when they can co-plan, test, and reflect. Trailblazers need the freedom to innovate and the platforms to share. As Guskey (2014) emphasizes, effective professional learning begins with clear goals and a deep understanding of educator readiness and context. Meeting teachers where they are is the foundation of any successful AI implementation plan.
  2. Center instruction, not tools
    Educators must be encouraged to treat AI not as a flashy add-on, but as a tool for strengthening existing practices. That means aligning AI integration to instructional goals like sourcing, argument writing, and civic reasoning, not engagement alone. As Fullan (2011) emphasized, meaningful change happens when schools prioritize the right drivers such as capacity building, collaborative work, and instructional improvement, instead of superficial fixes. Technology becomes a distraction when it is disconnected from purpose. Tools must serve pedagogy, not drive it. This also means evaluating AI-generated materials with the same critical lens students are taught to apply to historical sources.
  3. Leverage Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)
    Some of the most powerful shifts in practice emerge through sustained, peer-driven collaboration. Districts and schools can embed AI integration into existing PLC structures by identifying and supporting Designers and Trailblazers as lead learners who model and share instructional strategies. Within these communities, Novices can build confidence through co-planning and reflection, while Skeptics are invited to engage in inquiry without pressure. PLCs foster collective efficacy, promote shared responsibility for innovation, and ensure that professional learning remains rooted in classroom practice.
  4. Provide tools, time, and trust
    Teachers won’t use what they don’t understand or don’t have time to explore. Access to quality AI tools, along with dedicated time to explore them meaningfully, is essential. As Hernholm (2025) reminds us, capacity grows when schools invest not just in technology, but in the people using it.
  5. Focus on student thinking, not just use
    Rather than measuring AI adoption in terms of tool usage, districts should evaluate how it supports disciplinary thinking, civic engagement, and student growth. AI that helps students revise a DBQ, analyze bias, or debate constitutional issues is more impactful than AI used to generate generic content. The goal isn’t AI integration; it’s better thinking.

Final thought: Human teaching still wins the day

Across all four archetypes, whether skeptical, curious, intentional, or trailblazing, one truth holds: AI is only as powerful as the pedagogy behind it. As Michael Fullan (2011) warned more than a decade ago, technology alone doesn’t drive meaningful change. Real impact comes from purposeful design, skilled teaching, and systems that support both.

Used thoughtfully, AI can scaffold reasoning, simplify complex texts, and provide fast, iterative feedback. It can lower the barrier to entry for drafting and help students engage with challenging sources they might otherwise avoid. For multilingual learners and struggling writers, it can act as a helpful drafting partner, not a shortcut, but a springboard.

But the risks are real. Without intentional framing, students may bypass the intellectual heavy lifting that defines social studies. AI can hallucinate facts, misrepresent sources, or mask bias in confident tones. As Dan Meyer (2024) reminds us, AI can do the heavy lifting of generating and organizing, but “we have to help teachers go the last mile.” That last mile is where historical thinking, civic reasoning, and disciplinary literacy live. It’s where students learn to evaluate claims, wrestle with complexity, and build arguments from evidence.

Each archetype contributes to that journey. Skeptics ground us in ethical questions. Novices push us to offer practical supports. Designers model how to integrate tools with intention. Trailblazers show what’s possible when innovation meets purpose.

AI can support great teaching, but it cannot replace it.  We are not preparing students to use AI for trivia. We are preparing them to ask hard questions of systems, sources, and society.

That is the heart of social studies.

References

AI for Education. (2024, March 12). Getting started with AI: A guide for educators. https://www.aiforeducation.io/blog/getting-started-with-ai

Clark, C. H., & van Kessel, C. (2024). “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords”: Using artificial intelligence as a lesson planning resource for social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 24(2). https://citejournal.org/volume-24/issue-2-24/social-studies/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords-using-artificial-intelligence-as-a-lesson-planning-resource-for-social-studies/

Common Sense Media. (2025, June 26). Deepfakes can be a crime: Teaching AI literacy can prevent it. Retrieved August 3, 2025, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/kids-action/articles/deepfakes-can-be-a-crime-teaching-ai-literacy-can-prevent-it

Fullan, M. (2011). Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform. Centre for Strategic Education. https://theeta.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/eta-articles-110711.pdf

Guskey, T. R. (2014). Planning professional learning. Educational Leadership, 71(8), 10–16. Retrieved August 3, 2025, from https://tguskey.com/wp-content/uploads/Professional-Learning-2-Planning-Professional-Learning.pdf

Hernholm, S. (2025, June 19). AI in education: Why teachers need tools, time, and training. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhernholm/2025/06/19/ai-in-education-why-teachers-need-tools-time-and-training/

Klein, A. (2025, June 30). Why AI may not be ready to write your lesson plans. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/why-ai-may-not-be-ready-to-write-your-lesson-plans/2025/06

Meyer, D. (2024, May 3). The difference between great AI and great teaching [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH4Pn4bpOfQ

Sawchuk, S. (2025, July). What teachers should know about ChatGPT’s new Study Mode feature. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-teachers-should-know-about-chatgpts-new-study-mode-feature/2025/07

Szeto, A. (2024a). AI and social studies: Supporting multilingual learners with generative tools. Teaching Social Studies. https://teachingsocialstudies.org/tag/english/

Szeto, A. (2024b). Enhancing Student Learning with AI-Powered Image Features Teaching Social Studies. https://teachingsocialstudies.org/tag/historical-perspectives/

TechCrunch. (2025, July 29). Google’s NotebookLM rolls out video overviews. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/googles-notebooklm-rolls-out-video-overviews/

The White House. (2025, April 23). Executive Order 14277 of April 23, 2025: Advancing artificial intelligence education for American youth. Federal Register, 90, 17519–17523. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-04-28/pdf/2025-07368.pdf

The White House. (2025, July 23). Winning the race: America’s AI action plan [PDF]. Office of the President of the United States. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf

Wasik, B. (2025, June 16). A.I. is poised to rewrite history. Literally. The New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/magazine/ai-history-historians-scholarship.html

Wineburg, S., & Ziv, N. (2024, October 25). What makes students (and the rest of us) fall for AI misinformation? Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/opinion-what-makes-students-and-the-rest-of-us-fall-for-ai-misinformation/2024/10

Three Ways to Teach About Venezuela in a Nonpartisan Way

Three Ways to Teach About Venezuela in a Nonpartisan Way

by the Council on Foreign Relations

©2025 Council on Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Unpack the news coming out of Venezuela with expert-informed resources that focus on history and fundamental foreign policy concepts.

People celebrate after the U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, in Santiago, Chile on January 3, 2026.

Source: Pablo Sanhueza/Reuters

Last Updated: January 06, 2026

If your students are returning to the classroom talking about Venezuela, they are not alone. When Americans woke up on January 2nd to the news that U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, there were a lot of questions. The capture, which came after weeks of mounting military pressure on Venezuela, stirred difficult conversations, leaving world leaders and experts unsure of what comes next.

Given the uncertainty surrounding Venezuela, it is important to present this moment in foreign policy in a nonpartisan, fact-based manner to encourage students to think critically and form their own opinions.

In this blog, you’ll find three ways to incorporate this topic into your teaching by 

  • viewing events through a historical lens;
  • focusing on fundamental concepts of foreign policy; and
  • conducting a hypothetical simulation on the foreign policy tool of intelligence and covert action.

A Summary of the Past Decade in Venezuela 
 

Venezuela has been struggling for years. Once South America’s wealthiest country, Venezuela’s economy collapsed in 2014 under President Nicolás Maduro due to expensive social policies, corruption, and overreliance on oil exports. The legitimacy of Maduro’s role as president has been called into question numerous times because of fraudulent elections and arrests of opposition leaders.

For almost two decades, the United States has imposed sanctions on Venezuela for a variety of reasons, including for lack of cooperation on counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts, as well as human rights violations. Under the Biden Administration, some sanctions were rolled back in an effort to curb energy prices and help the Venezuelan people. However, after Maduro’s government claimed victory in the 2024 election despite evidence that the opposition won the majority of votes, the tide changed again. Within the first year of his second term, President Trump began deploying a significant military presence off the coast of Venezuela, escalating tensions.


History of U.S. Foreign Policy in South and Latin America 
 

The U.S. has been involved in Latin America almost as long as the United States has existed as a country. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 declared that European nations should not interfere in the region, as it was in the United States’ sphere of influence. President Theodore Roosevelt went further than his contemporaries, announcing through the Roosevelt Corollary that the United States would intervene in countries in the region. These two declarations set the stage for decades of intervention aimed at advancing U.S. interests.

A 1905 political cartoon by Louis Dalrymple depicts Uncle Sam straddling the Americas while wielding a big stick labeled “Monroe Doctrine.” Source: Bettmann Archive via Getty Images

From the Spanish-American War to supporting an armed insurrection to creating the Panama Canal, the U.S. became increasingly involved in Latin America as it sought to establish itself as a global power. There were a few years when the U.S. attempted to prioritize a more diplomatic approach in the region and focused on fostering democracy and developing local economies.

The Cold War quickly saw a return to U.S. interventionism. During this period, the United States and the Soviet Union supported opposing governments worldwide to promote their ideologies, exploited local politics for economic advantage, and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Some of the governments that the U.S. supported to achieve its goals were violent, oppressive, and often inflicted lasting harm on their populations.

The U.S. operation to capture Maduro could signal a return to the kind of interventionism that defined previous decades of U.S. involvement in Latin America.

Foreign Policy Concepts Relevant to Venezuela
 

With a range of perspectives on what has occurred in Venezuela over the past few days, understanding fundamental foreign policy concepts can help students form their own conclusions.

Discussions about Saturday’s operation have centered on several core foundational concepts in international relations, including sovereignty, international law, and the authorization of force. Use CFR Education resources to help your students understand the basics before they consider whether they believe the concepts apply in this situation.

Sovereignty 

In principle, sovereignty means countries get to control what happens inside their borders and shouldn’t interfere within other countries. However, as with most things, established principles don’t always hold true. Countries occasionally violate other countries’ sovereignty to varying degrees – sometimes for humanitarian reasons, and sometimes to pursue economic or security goals.

The concept of sovereignty has become increasingly complicated in a more interconnected world, where many of today’s most pressing issues do not respect geographic boundaries. What does sovereignty look like when greenhouse gas emissions, viruses, and information ignore borders? While sovereignty serves as a central organizing principle at the heart of modern international relations, there are few clear rules or procedures for determining who is entitled to form a sovereign country or what constitutes a violation of sovereignty. 

International Law 

As with sovereignty, international law has helped maintain order by setting standards that other countries and domestic publics alike can use to hold governments accountable. Some types of international law are codified in the form of treaties and formalized agreements. Other international law is customary, comprising international obligations that arise from established international practices rather than from formal written treaties.

The United Nations (UN) Charter prohibits the use of military force, except in two cases: self-defense and instances where the UN Security Council authorizes the use of force. If war does break out, international humanitarian law encompasses a set of rules that aim to mitigate the conflict’s impact on civilians. These principles are codified in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which 196 countries have ratified.

Primary Source Tip: Have your students read Article 2(4) in Chapter I of the UN Charter and discuss the extent to which it leaves room for interpretation regarding the use of military force and self-defense. 
 

The Constitution and Military Force

According to the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to declare war. It also empowers Congress to authorize military force without having to declare war, as Congress did—among other times—in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s. While Congress can greenlight military force, the president serves as the commander-in-chief of the military and has discretion over how it performs its duties. Presidents have used this authority to deploy the country’s armed forces, conduct intelligence, and carry out covert operations. 


In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution to ensure that presidents can act effectively in a military context by acting unilaterally for specific periods of time before obtaining congressional approval. However, past presidents of both parties have violated the War Powers Resolution without facing action from Congress.

Primary Source Tip: Have your students read Article I, Section 8, and Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution before reading the CFR Education piece to see how these Sections of the Constitution have evolved over time. Then ask them to discuss whether they see Venezuela as representing continuity or change in the evolving way in which presidents pursue American interests.

Hypothetical Scenarios
 

It can be challenging to understand the foreign policy forces at play in Venezuela while also keeping up with the constant news updates. You can drive home the relevant issues of intelligence and covert action without having to refer back to the news for policy changes with one of the hypothetical situations in CFR Education’s simulations library.

In the simulation below, students are put in the shoes of the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on deciding whether to use covert action as a tool of foreign policy. After conducting the simulation, ask students to reflect: What is this tool suitable for? Does it fulfill its stated goals? What are the pros and cons of employing covert action? Do students see similarities or differences between the hypothetical simulation and the events this past weekend in Venezuela?

Teach the Headlines with CFR Education

Rapidly changing global affairs can be challenging to understand, which is why it is essential to scaffold these events for your students by studying history, principles of foreign policy, and simulations that model global situations.

You can rely on CFR Education for nonpartisan resources that will help you tackle this situation as well as the other global events heading our way.

Newsletter to teach today’s most pressing global issues! 

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Era 13 Postwar United States: Civil Unrest and Social Change

New Jersey Council for the Social Studies

www.njcss.org

Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History

The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population.  In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.

These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country.  The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org

Era 13 Postwar United States: Civil Rights and Social Change (1945 to early 1970s)

The postwar era marked the rise of America as a world power. The new world order established alliance and economic agreements that have led to unprecedented economic growth. However, this period also marks divisions between countries with democratic institutions, authoritarian governments following the ideology of Marxist communism, and developing countries with issues of poverty, disease, debt, and human rights abuses. The United States faced issues or racial segregation, a shrinking middle class, and the expansion of costly federal government programs and a large defense budget causing its national debt to increase. Technology and the media influenced social changes.

Activity #1: Federalism: Dixiecrats in the United States and the Swiss Cantons

Dixiecrats and the Authority of State Government in the United States

The principle of federalism is valued in the way the people of the United States govern themselves. There is a fine line between the division of powers between the states and the national government. The Tenth Amendment specifically protects the powers of the 50 states, and the Ninth Amendment protects the powers of individual citizens.  The powers of the national government are carefully defined and limited.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Ninth Amendment)

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Tenth Amendment)

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” (Article 2, Section 2)

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.” (Article 2, Section 3)

The Dixiecrats perceived the legislation passed by the national government (Congress and President Truman) to integrate American society as a threat to their liberty and authority as independent states. In the 1948 presidential election, Southern Democrats walked out of the Democratic National Convention because they disagreed with its civil rights platform. They formed a new political party with South Carolina’s Governor Strom Thurmond as their party’s presidential nominee. Their objective was to deny or ‘nullify’ laws passed by the national government to integrate schools and modes of transportation. Individual states wanted to continue with the 1896 “separate but equal” decision from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. 

In 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law, the Alien and Sedition Acts. The acts outraged Thomas Jefferson and Kentucky declared the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional and “altogether void and of no force” in the state of Kentucky.

Kentucky held that our Constitution was a “compact” among the states that delegated a set of limited powers to the federal government. This meant that “every state” had the power to “nullify of their own authority” any violation of the Constitution. In 1832, South Carolina declared the Tariff of 1832 was unconstitutional, “null, void, and no law” because they disproportionately burdened southern states.

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” (Article 6)

Switzerland’s Government

Switzerland is governed under a federal system at three levels: the Confederation, the 26 cantons and the 2,131 communes. The Swiss Confederation of States and its current boundaries were agreed to in 1815 and its current constitution was adopted in 1848. Switzerland has a direct democracy with citizens voting on decisions at all political levels. Switzerland is governed by the Federal Council of seven members representing the different political parties and are elected by the two-house assembly or parliament. whose decisions are made by consensus. Switzerland has a two-house assembly, the National Council is the lower house and represents the people. The upper house is the Council of States and represents the individual cantons. Switzerland also has ten political parties. The powers of cantons include education, culture, healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, taxation, and voting. Cantons have their own constitutions, parliaments, and courts, which are aligned with the federal constitution. 

An example of a conflict in Switzerland that challenged the authority of the individual cantons is the city of Moutier with a population of 7,500 in the canton of Bern. Since 1957, the Moutier committee wanted to secede from the canton of Bern and join the canton of Jura. The majority of people in Bern have voted to keep Moutier within its jurisdiction.  Four out of the seven Jura districts narrowly rejected forming a new district. The three northern, majority Roman Catholic, districts voted in favor of a new district.

Since 2013, there have been peaceful protests and at times vandalism. The people of Moutier voted to join the Jura canton making it the second largest town in the canton of Jura. Although a majority, 51%, of the people voted to join, the government and people of Bern declared their vote to be invalid because some people voted whose residency could not be confirmed. There have been nine referendums in the past 70 years with the population voting to secede and join the Canton of Jura in 2021.  The change to the canton of Jura took effect on January 1, 2026, granting Moutier the right to secede from one canton and join another.

Questions:

  1. Should the national government of the United States be able to enforce common laws for holidays, the economy, schools, transportation, public health, and the environment in all 50 states and territories?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of the federal system of power between the individual states and the national government in the United States?
  • Does the Swiss government model have any advantages or disadvantages over the structure of government in the United States?
  • What would be the best way to resolve the conflict with the population of Moutier?
  • Will the decision allowing Moutier to secede establish a precedent for future towns or cities to secede in Switzerland?  

Platform of the States Rights Democratic Party, August 14, 1948

Article 1, Section 8: Federalism and the Overall Scope of Federal Power

Keeping the Balance: What a President Can and Cannot Do (Truman Library)

Looking Back: Nullification in American History (National Constitution Center)

Political System of Switzerland

Federalism in Switzerland

Activity #2: Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Canadian Aid to Schools

Education is primarily a state and local responsibility in the United States. About 92% of the money for elementary and secondary education comes from local taxes and money from the individual states. The role of the federal government in education dates back to 1867 when Congress wanted information on teachers and how students learn. Over time this led to land-grant colleges and vocational schools After World War 2, the federal government enacted the “GI Bill” to provide college and vocational education to returning veterans.

In response to the Soviet launch of a satellite, Sputnik, into space in 1957, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act to provide funds for teachers in the areas of mathematics, science, world languages, and area studies to enable us to compete with the Soviet Union. Perhaps the most significant legislation to increase federal funds for schools came in response to the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s and the Great Society programs to reduce poverty. In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a position in the president’s Cabinet. In 2025, the Department of Education’s staff and budget was significantly reduced. The Department of Education before 2025 supported 50 million students in 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. They also provided grants, loans, and work-study programs to 12 million students in colleges and vocational training programs. In addition, they administered $150 billion in loans.

The purpose of federal funds in the United States is to provide equality for disadvantaged students and to improve academic achievement. This is monitored through state assessments based on learning standards. Unfortunately, some states lowered their expectations for student achievement to qualify for the federal funds and the federal government is currently investigating fraud in how federal dollars are being spent.

In the United States, federal funds are designated for after school instruction, English language acquisition, preschools, nutrition, literacy, teaching American history and civics, charter, and  magnet schools.

School Financing in Canada

School funding in Canada is primarily a responsibility of provincial and territorial governments. The federal government contributes money to ensure an equal education for its significant indigenous population. Most funding is from Canada’s 10 provinces. Some provinces provide public funding to private, charter, and religious schools.

The government of Canada views education as a public good from which everyone in society benefits. Education prepares students for jobs, higher education, lowers crime, and reduces poverty. Employers also benefit as educated workers are more productive leading to higher profits for businesses. The only province to fully embrace school choice is Alberta. Canadians fear that school choice may lead wealthier Canadians to benefit from independent, parochial, charter, or magnet schools and this would leave marginalized populations at a disadvantage. Equality and equity are two principles that Canadians value.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the United States is ranked #1 and Canada is ranked #4 in the world in education.

Questions:

  1. Should local communities, states or provinces, or the national government decide the curriculum and funding for public schools?
  2. To what extent should public tax dollars be used to support private or religious schools?
  3. What is the best way to ensure an equal and equitable education for all students?
  4. Should public tax dollars be used for extracurricular activities and sports in schools?
  5. Do you consider education to be a public good that benefits all of society or is it a private good that benefits individual students?
  6. To what extent should public tax dollars be used to support college and vocational education after completing elementary and secondary education?

Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Canada’s Approach to School Funding

Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Activity #3: Segregation by Race in the United States and by Religion in India

De facto Racial Residential Segregation in the United States

The United States ended racial segregation with the Brown v. Board of Education v. Topeka, Kansas decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the United States continues to be a place of segregation, not integration. Residential segregation exists through our zip codes and neighborhoods. Although our laws prohibit discrimination, differences in land use policies, wealth and income, contribute to what is called de facto racial residential segregation. Neighborhoods determine the quality of schools, public safety, quality of drinking water, opportunities for employment, strategies of law enforcement, rates of incarceration, and life expectancy.

A study by the University of California (Source) found that more than 80 percent of metropolitan areas were more segregated in 2019 than in 1990. In 2025, the United States government effectively ended support for DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. Racial residential segregation is difficult to    address when resources are not equally available to all communities. The Kerner Commission wrote in its 1968 report that integration is “the only course which explicitly seeks to achieve a single nation” rather than a dual or permanently divided society.

Table 3: Top 10 Most Segregated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (2019, Minimum 200,000 people)

Segregation  RankMetro
1New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
2Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
3Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI
4Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI
5Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
6Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
7Trenton-Ewing, NJ
8Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH
9Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
10 (tied)Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX
10 (tied)New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA

Religious Segregation in India

India ended the caste system in 1947 and yet many Indians live in religiously segregated areas. One of the reasons for this segregation is that friendship circles are often part of the religious community and marriages are within the same faith community. People in southern India are most likely to live in integrated neighborhoods. Indians with a college degree are more accepting of people from other faiths living in their neighborhoods than those with less education.

Very few Indians say they are married to someone with a different religion. Almost all married people (99%) reported that their spouse shared their religion. This applies to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists.

Indians generally marry within same religion

Religion, especially members of the Hindu faith, is closely connected with views on politics and national identity. Hindus make up 80% of India’s population. A Pew Research study found that 36% of Hindus would not be willing to live near a Muslim, and 31% say they would not want a Christian living in their neighborhood. Jains are even more likely to express such views:. 54% of people who identify with the Jainist faith would not accept a Muslim as a neighbor, and 47% say the same about Christians. People who identify as Buddhist tend to be the most accepting of people from other faith traditions. Eight-in-ten Buddhists in India say they would accept a Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Jain as a neighbor.

Members of both large and small religious groups mostly keep friendships within religious lines

And Indians who live in the Central region of the country are more inclined than people in other regions to say it is very important to stop people from marrying outside of their religion. Among Hindus in the Central region, for instance, 82% say stopping the interreligious marriage of Hindu women is very important, compared with 67% of Hindus nationally. Among Muslims in the region, nearly all (96%) see it as crucial to stop Muslim women from marrying outside the faith, versus 80% of Muslims nationally.

The religious segregation also impacts the quality of education and employment. Muslim student enrollment is dropping. Some states in India are banning religious instruction even though it is protected by the national constitution.

Questions:

  1. Are there common factors (geographic, social, economic, racial, educational, religious, etc.) causing different kinds of segregation in Indian and the United States?
  2. How can countries best establish a social system of equality and integration?
  3. Is segregation present in your school or community?
  4. How do countries/societies unite or define their identity?
  5. Is the problem of segregation about the same, more severe, less severe in India or the United States?

Examples of Government Regulation of Business in the United States

Religious Segregation in India (Pew Research Center)

Activity #4: The Great Society Programs and The Marshall Plan for Europe

The Great Society Program in the United States

In 1965, according to the U.S. Census, the poverty rate in the United States was 13.3%. In 2024, it was 10.6%. However, poverty rates often provide mixed data because of inflation, income levels, race, and age. For examples in 1965 45% of the population in South Carolina was below the poverty line and in 2024 the poverty rate for Hispanic (15%), Black Americans (18.4%), and Native Americans (19.3%) is significantly higher than 10.6%. The definition is further complicated by the difference between absolute poverty (below an income of $31,200 for a four-person household) and relative poverty (the quality of life for people in a neighborhood or community).

Social Security and Medicare are for senior citizens who are eligible at age 65 for Medicare and age 67 for Social Security. There are 83 million people, including children, receiving Medicaid, about 25% of the population. The program is offered by the states and the services provided depend on the state. An average estimate for eligibility is an income that is about 140 percent above the federal poverty level ($30,000 for a family of two in New Jersey, as of 2026). In New Jersey, Medicaid costs about 23% of the state’s budget. Approximately 25% of the residents in New Jesey receive Medicaid at an average cost of $2,600 per enrollee. Amounts vary and are higher for families with children and pregnant women.

According to the Congressional Research Services, mandatory spending was only 30% of the federal budget. Today, it is 60%. Medicare and Medicaid together cost nearly $1 trillion annually. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are the main contributors to our national debt, which is now over $40 trillion (or roughly $59,000 per citizen). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare provides health insurance coverage to 68 million Americans. Funding for Medicare is from government contributions, payroll tax revenues, and premiums paid by beneficiaries. Medicare spending is currently about 13.5% of the federal budget or roughly $1.1 trillion. The average cost is $17,000 per enrollee with a $12 billion shortfall in 2023, about $1,300 per enrollee.  The administration of President Trump cut some of the Medicaid programs in 2025 and is negotiating lower prescription drug costs to reduce this shortfall. An aging population and higher health care costs are factors that are expected to continue. Even with these Great Society programs, poverty among the elderly is significantly high. According to USA Today,

“Based on the official measure, which is a simple calculation based on pretax cash income compared with a national threshold, the percentage of seniors in poverty rose to 9.9% last year from 9.7% in 2023, data showed. Using the more comprehensive supplemental measure, which includes noncash government benefits, accounts for taxes and essential expenses like medical care and work-related costs, and adjusts thresholds for regional differences in housing costs, senior poverty rose to 15% from 14.2% − and marked the highest poverty level among all age groups.”

Although these programs are not cost effective and are withdrawing funds from the Trust Fund, they are considered transfer payments because the money is spent at the local and state level which generates income and GDP growth in the economy. They are often referred to as entitlement programs because they were passed by Congress and have been in effect for 90 years (Social Security) and 60 years (Medicaid and Medicare) and revised and expanded over time.

Marshall Plan

In June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall, announced the U.S. plan to give economic aid to Europe. The offer was made to all of Europe, including the U.S. wartime enemies and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. Sixteen European countries responded by cooperating on a plan that was accepted by the United States. The United States appropriated $13.6 billion (equivalent to $190 billion in 2026 money) was provided. By 1950, the economies of the participating countries returned to their prewar levels.

The Marshall Plan required the countries to stabilize their currency, reduce public spending, import goods from the United States and increase their exports to the United States. There were clear expectations that benefited the economy of the United States. The Marshall Plan established the U.S. as a dominant economic power, promoted open trade and prevented the return of economic depression. It was critical in forming NATO and a closer relationship between the United States and Europe.

Questions:

  1. Given the fact that the Great Society programs of Medicaid and Medicare are not cost effective and that the poverty rate for people over the age of 65 has increased, should the United States continue with these programs?
  2. What should the United States or the individual states do to lower the poverty rate among people over the age of 65?
  3. Does the United States have a legal (constitutional) or moral responsibility to provide supplemental or full health care for its citizens, legal residents, and/or undocumented immigrants?
  4. Was the Marshall Plan worth the investment by the United States?
  5. What factors contributed to the success of the Marshall Plan?
  6. Would a ‘Marshall Plan” to support the rebuilding of a sustainable infrastructure based on renewable energy be effective and accomplish similar outcomes within three to five years?

Tallying the Costs and Benefits of LBJ’s Great Society Programs (American Enterprise Institute)

Estimates of the Costs of Federal Credit Programs (Congressional Budget Office)

Kaiser Family Foundation Reports on Medicare-Medicaid Enrollment and Spending

Marshall Plan (1948) (National Archives)

Marshall Plan and U.S. Economic Dominance (EBSCO)

The Marshall Plan: Design, Accomplishments, and Significance (Congressional Research Service)

Era 12 Postwar United States: Cold War (1945 to early 1970s)

New Jersey Council for the Social Studies

www.njcss.org

Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History

The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population.  In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.

These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country.  The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org

Era 12 Postwar United States: Cold War (1945 to early 1970s)

The middle of the 20th century marks the zenith of American power in the world. Following World War 2, international organizations were established to maintain a stable world order. The United States developed alliances to counter the threat of communism and authoritarian governments.  The cost of the arms race and role as ‘global policeman’ was costly for the government of the United States and as a result its defense of democracy and human rights faced criticisms from its elected representatives and people.

Activity #1: Bay of Pigs Invasion and Crimean Peninsula Invasion

In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The U.S. government distrusted Castro and was wary of his relationship with Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower approved the training of a small army for an assault landing and guerilla warfare. The success of the plan depended on the Cuban population joining the invaders.

On April 17, 1961 the Cuban-exile invasion force landed at beaches along the Bay of Pigs and immediately came under heavy fire.  Within 24 hours, about 1,200 members of the invasion force surrendered, and more than 100 were killed. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a disaster for the United States and President Kennedy.

In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine. Russia annexed Ukraine but the international community did not support or recognize the actions of Russia. Since 2014, Russia has tightened its grip on Crimea. It has transformed the occupied Ukrainian peninsula into a military base, utilizing it for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Crimea currently serves as an important logistical hub for the Russian military, acting as an airbase and naval base while playing a key role in the resupply of the Russian army in Ukraine.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Russia’s Invasion of Crimea in 2014

Questions:

  1. Did the United States have a right to overthrow an unelected ruler in Cuba who supported the Soviet Union?
  2. To what extent does geography, national security, or economic stability justify actions of large sovereign states interfering in domestic affairs in smaller states?
  3. Why did the international community fail to challenge Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014?
  4. Why does Russia want territory in Crimea and Ukraine?
  5. How can the international community best address the situation in Ukraine?
  6. If the international community accepts Russia’s illegal annexation of territory in a neighboring state, does this allow or encourage other countries to annex territories. (i.e. China, United States, etc.)

Activity #2: Human Rights Issues and Asylum Policies

As Americans enjoyed their new prosperity and role as the leader of the free world, there were voices for equality from women, African Americans, and people of color. The US also embraced global responsibilities and the threat posed by the expansion of communism.

Most Americans believe that freedom is a fundamental human right. In the post-World War 2 era, The United States found that the cost of defending democracy and human rights was expensive and difficult. In the first quarter of the 21st century, the United States experienced a state sponsored terririst attack on New York City and Washington D.C., threats of international terrorism, a divided Congress, unprecedented national debt, and conflicts in the Middle East. In 2025, there were 59 violent conflicts in the world. The interests of Russia and China are in conflict with the interests of the United States to defend democratic values and institutions and human rights.

The United States has not ratified the following international agreements on human rights:

  • International Criminal Court
  • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
  • Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
  • Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance
  • Mine Ban Treaty
  • Convention on Cluster Munitions
  • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
  • Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture

Source

Before 1950, the United States had no stated policy on asylum. However, between 1933-1945, about 200,000 refugees fleeing the violence of war, immigrated to the United States. The American people were opposed to changing the National Origins Quota System enacted in 1924.

The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act was passed over President Truman’s veto. It continues to serve as the basis of our immigration laws and policies.

“The bill would continue, practically without change, the national origins quota system, which was enacted, into law in 1924, and put into effect in 1929. This quota system—always based upon assumptions at variance with our American ideals—is long since out of date and more than ever unrealistic in the face of present world conditions.

This system hinders us in dealing with current immigration problems, and is a constant handicap in the conduct of our foreign relations.” 

In 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Celler Act) eliminated the quota system that was part of the McCarran-Walter Act. The Act opened immigration to people of different racial and ethnic populations, especially Asians and Africans, it continued the quotas for Mexicans and Hispanic populations and favored visas for skilled workers over agricultural or domestic workers.  

According to the UN refugee agency, a record-breaking 3.6 million new individual asylum applications were registered worldwide in 2023 with most new asylum claims made by nationals of Afghanistan, Colombia, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela. At the close of 2023, 6.9 million asylum seekers worldwide still had pending asylum claims.

In the United States in 2023, nearly half of all asylum approvals were for people fleeing Afghanistan, China, El Salvador, and Venezuela from violence, poverty, and political upheaval.

Questions:

  1. Why has the United States refused to support international laws on human rights and crimes against humanity since World War 2?
  2. Is there evidence that the United States violates the human rights of some of its own citizens?
  3. Why have the American people reflected a restrictive immigration policy over time, even for refugees facing death or abuse in their home country?
  4. Who should be granted asylum in the United States?

History of Child Labor in the United States

Truman Library Institute

Brown University’s Slavery and Justice Report

The National Council of La Raza

The War Refugee Board

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952(McCarran-Walter Act)

The 1965 Immigration Act: Opening the Nation to Immigrants of Color(Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)

How Should Americans Remember the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act?(Organization of American Historians)

How the U.S. Asylum Process Works(Council on Foreign Relations)

Activity #3: The Deportation of People for Their Political Views

In the years after World War 2, especially after Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech in 1946, the United States feared a global domination of communism. This belief gained popularity after China became communist in 1949. The current administration of President Trump is identifying the Democratic party with Marxist-Leninist ideology or progressive ideas for universal health care, helping students to repay college loans, raising the minimum wage, labor unions, and deporting immigrants with legal visas and some who are not documented.

This has a ‘chilling effect’ on people, especially educators and college professors who teach about communism and Marxist socialism. It is important to understand the historical perspective over time regarding how the government of the United States has responded to situations which have called for a change in our government through elections and the violent overthrow of our Constitution and democratic institutions.

Historical Context

Congress has the power to protect the Government of the United States from armed rebellion. The Insurrection Act of 1807 combined a series of statues to protect the United States from angry citizens following the Embargo Act. The issue for debate is when does the protection of free speech regarding criticism of government policies and organizing plans to change government policies or elected leaders become a matter permitting the government to use military force to protect itself.

The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the U.S. military, including federal armed forces and National Guard from enforcing civil law. The reason for this is to protect the First Amendment rights of citizens to express their beliefs. The Stafford Act (1988) permits the use of the military in times of natural disasters or public health epidemics. 

Section 252 the Insurrection Act allows the president to deploy troops without a request from the state and provides the authority to send in troops against the state’s wishes to enforce the laws of the United States or to suppress rebellion.  President Eisenhower used this power to enforce the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to desegregate the public schools in Little Rock, AK.  In 1992, the governor of California requested President George H.W. Bush to send troops to control the rioting in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers on the beating of Rodney King. Section 253 allows the president to suppress domestic violence, a conspiracy to overthrow the government, or an insurrection.  John Brown’s raid in 1859 and the Civil War are examples.

The Smith Act was passed in 1940 making it a crime for any person knowingly or willfully to advocate the overthrow or destruction of the Government of the United States by force or violence. This Act led to the arrest of leaders of the Communist Party who were advocating to overthrow the government of the United States by force.

In 1951, the Court ruled in a 6-2 decision that the conviction of Eugene Dennis of conspiring and organizing for the overthrow and destruction of the United States government by force and violence under provisions of the Smith Act.  In 1967, the decision was overturned by the Brandenburg v. Ohio when the Supreme Court held that “mere advocacy” of violence was protected speech. 

In New York, the Feinberg Law banned from the teaching of the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. Several other states adopted similar measures. When a group of teachers and parents challenged this law, the Supreme Court upheld it in Adler v. Board of Education of the City of New York, (1952) In 1967, another Supreme Court overturned the Adler decision.

Questions:

  1. If the Declaration of Independence states the right of people to dissent and overthrow an unjust government, should school teachers be allowed to teach this to young students?

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

2. Why do you think the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Dennis and Adler decisions years later? Do these reversals have a strong foundation in American law?

3. Is it possible to use the Smith Act and the Insurrection Act to bring about a change in government that would embrace a more authoritarian government and a less democratic one?

4. How can the Smith Act and Insurrection Act be abolished?  Should they be abolished?

5. What is the biggest threat facing the United States in the future? (natural disaster, political violence, artificial intelligence, public health emergency, economic crisis, etc.)   Will the best solutions to this threat come from the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branch of our government?

Thomas Jefferson Signs the Insurrection Act into Law, March 3, 1807

The Insurrection Act Explained  (Brennan Center for Justice)

Dennis v. United States

Supreme Court Rules on Communist Teachers (Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York)

Insubordination And ‘Conduct Unbecoming’: Purging New York’s Communist Teachers at the Start of the Cold War (The Gotham Center for New York City History)

Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump’s Adminsitration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America(American Immigration Council)

Activity #4: The Return of Veterans from World War 2 in the United States and Japan

Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945. More than 400,000 Americans, and an estimated 65 million people worldwide, died during the war. After the surrender, the repatriation of the soldiers to their home country began. Refugees also began to return to their homes. The return of the soldiers to Japan, Soviet Union, European countries, and the United States was very different. In this activity, you will compare the return of 7 million soldiers to Japan and the United States. The United States had 16 million soldiers in uniform and 8 million of them were overseas. Operation Magic Carpet was the program to transport Japan’s soldiers to their homeland. There were also millions of Korean and Chinese civilians the Japanese used as slave labor during the war who needed to be repatriated.

Japan’s navy and merchant marine navy had been destroyed during the war. The carriers Hosho and Katsuragi, the destroyer, Yoizuki, and the passenger ship, Hikawa Maru, were able to transport some Japanese soldiers. The United States, Soviet Union, and England used their ships to bring 6.6 million Japanese soldiers back to Japan. The Japanese government designated 18 ports to receive their soldiers. The U.S. role was completed by the end of 1947. The Soviet Union’s role continued through 1957. The port of Maizuru was the largest port.

The Japanese soldiers were sprayed with the chemical DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane) to kill fleas and lice. At the time, DDT was considered a ‘safe’ chemical but in 1972 it was known to be harmful. Welcome towers were erected where citizens welcomed the retuning soldiers.

The United States also used Nisei interpreters during the years after the surrender of Japan (1945-1952) to prosecute Japan’s military leaders for war crimes, detect subversive activities and help with the drafting of Japan’s new constitution.

Most cities and homes in Japan were destroyed as a result of the war and the destruction of the two atomic bombs. Almost every family experienced the death of a loved one and they did not have a proper burial or the return of their personal belongings (sword, identification, notebooks, clothing, etc.) The new government in Japan changed the family structure which encouraged marriage and children.

The Return of Soldiers to the United States

The return of veterans to the United States began in 1944, shortly after D-Day. The government instituted a point system based on battles for the return home after the war ended and the GI Bill, which provided for education and vocational training, credit towards loans, one year of unemployment compensation, and counseling. The purpose of the GI Bill was to avoid the high unemployment and inflation that followed World War I.

“Veterans Prepare for Your Future thru Educational Training, Consult Your Nearest Office of the Veterans Administration,” n.d. Courtesy of NARA, 44-PA-2262, NAID

The repatriation of American soldiers was very successful and the income taxes from their wages paid back the cost of the GI Bill within the first few years. Veterans also purchased new homes which also increased the GDP.  Similar benefits were provided to American soldiers who served in Korea and Vietnam. New car sales also quadrupled in the first ten years following World War 2 and by 1960 about 75 percent of American households owned a car.

Questions:

  1. Why did the United States spend millions of dollars to repatriate Japanese soldiers to Japan after the surrender and why did our government pay for the inoculations and transportation of Korean and Chinese from Taiwan?
  2. What would the post-war years in Japan be like without the financial and technical assistance of the United States and the Allied Powers?
  3. As a member of Congress, would you have supported the GI Bill in 1944 knowing that the national debt of the United States was 120% above our GDP?
  • Was it fair to provide ships to transport Japanese soldiers home before all of the American soldiers were repatriated?
  • Should the United States have done more (or less) to repatriate the soldiers from Japan?

Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum

Return to Maizuri Port: Documents Related to the Repatriation and Internment Experiences of Japanese (1945-1956)   (UNESCO)

The Afterlife of Families in Japan (Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi)

U.S. Naval Institute

The American Soldier in World War 2

Veterans Return Home From World War 2 (U.S. Army Documentary)

Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, 1944 (National Archives)

Can you Pass the Oklahoma Anti-Woke Test?

Can You Pass the Oklahoma Anti-Woke Teacher’s Test?

Alan Singer, Director, Secondary Education Social Studies
Teaching Learning Technology
284 Hagedorn Hall / 119 Hofstra University / Hempstead, NY 11549
(P) 516-463-5853 (F) 516-463-6196 Bluesky @zaydealan.bsky.social

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/31/2360791/-CAN-YOU-PASS-THE-OKLAHOMA-ANTI-WOKE-TEACHER-S-TEST

In August 2025, worried that WOKE educators from higher paying unionized states might move to Oklahoma to take jobs as teachers, Oklahoma implemented an “America-First Assessment” for new teachers. The assessment, created by the PragerU, a conservative group that is definitely not a university, was dropped three months later by a new state education superintendent.

As a WOKE teacher educator from a WOKE state with almost fifty years of teaching experience and indoctrination, I was interested to see if I could pass the “America-First Assessment” and qualify to teach in Oklahoma. But not to worry, it is much easier than the test immigrants take to become United States citizens, the New York State Teacher Certification Exam, and the United States History Regents Exam for 11th grade students in New York State.

A reporter for the Oklahoma Voice took the online test and intentionally picked the most ridiculous choices. It turns out that when you got a wrong answer, the test allowed you to try again and again until you picked the choice they wanted so it was impossible to fail. It makes you wonder about the poor quality of teaching and learning in the Sooner State.

The test has a number of questions about defining sex but no questions about Oklahoma history. Teachers don’t have to know about the Trail of Tears forcing East Coast Native American tribes onto Oklahoma Territory reservations or race riots that destroyed the Tulsa African American community.

Don’t be nervous. I highlighted the answers Oklahoma wants you to pick to prove you aren’t WOKE.

1. According to the Supreme Court cases Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), who has the ultimate right to direct a child’s education?
a. The Superintendent of Schools
b. The parents
c. The Board of Education
d. The federal Department of Education

2. What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?
a. Height and weight
b. Blood type
c. Personal preference
d. Chromosomes and reproductive anatomy

3. How is a child’s biological sex typically identified?
a. Parental affirmation of child’s preference
b. Personal feelings
c. Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes
d. Online registration

4. Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans?
a. AA/BB
b. XX/XY
c. RH/AB
d. XE/XQ

5. Why is the distinction between male and female considered important in areas like sports and privacy?
a. For equity in minority communities
b. To preserve fairness, safety and integrity for both sexes
c. To increase participation in sports
d. To enhance the self-esteem of transgender children

6. Should teachers be allowed to express their own political viewpoints in the classroom In order to persuade the students to adopt their point of view?
a. Yes, teachers have freedom of speech, too, which does not stop at the classroom door
b. No, once you become a teacher, your freedom of speech in and out of the classroom is restricted
c. Yes, sometimes – when the issue includes civil rights or social justice
d. No, the classroom is not an appropriate venue for political activism

7. What did the Supreme Court rule in the 2025 case of Mahmoud v. Taylor?
a. Gender-affirming medical procedures are allowed in America
b. Students must recite the Pledge of Allegiance in schools
c. Religious schools must hire non-religious staff
d. Public schools cannot require participation in LGBTQ-themed instruction without a parental opt-out

8. What are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution?
a. In God We Trust
b. We the People
c. Life, Liberty, Happiness
d. The United States

9. Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
a. It protects religious choice from government control
b. It makes Christianity the national religion
c. It bans all forms of public worship
d. It limits religious teaching in the public square

10. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
a. The House of Lords and The House of Commons
b. The judiciary and the Senate
c. The Executive and the Legislative
d. The Senate and the House of Representatives

11. How many total U.S. senators are there?
a. 435
b. 535
c. 100
d. 50

12. Why do some states have more representatives than others?
a. Representation is allocated by population
b. They cover a larger geographic area
c. They have held statehood for a longer period
d. The number is determined by Congress

13. What is the primary responsibility of the president’s Cabinet?
a. Approve Supreme Court justices
b. Pass legislation
c. Sign executive orders
d. Advise the president

14. Who signs bills into law?
a. The vice president
b. The chief justice
c. The president
d. The speaker of the house

15. What is the highest court in the United States?
a. The Federal Court
b. The Court of Appeals
c. The District Court
d. The Supreme Court

16. In the United States, which of the following is a responsibility reserved only for citizens?
a. Serve on a jury
b. Own a home
c. Pay taxes
d. Possess a driver’s license

17. Which of the following are explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights?
a. Freedom of speech and religion
b. Voting and public education
c. Reproductive rights and healthcare
d. Freedom from data collection and surveillance

18. Which right does the Second Amendment protect?
a. The right to hunt and fish
b. The right to arm the military
c. The right to restrict certain kinds of speech
d. The right to keep and bear arms

19. What is the supreme law of the United States?
a. Presidential Executive Orders
b. Laws passed by Congress and signed by the president
c. Laws passed by state legislatures and signed by state governors
d. The Constitution

20. Who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?
a. John Adams
b. Thomas Jefferson
c. John Hancock
d. Thomas Paine

21. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
a. July 4, 1778
b. July 4, 1787
c. July 4, 1776
d. July 4, 1619

22. What was the primary reason the colonists fought the British?
a. To resist expansion of the British Empire
b. To maintain slavery
c. To resist taxation without representation
d. To resist forced military service

23. Who were the first three U.S. presidents?
a. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton
b. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson
c. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison
d. George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln

24. Who is called the “Father of Our Country”?
a. Benjamin Franklin
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Martin Luther King Jr.
d. George Washington

25. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
a. Ended Prohibition
b. Freed Confederate generals
c. Freed the slaves in the North
d. Ended slavery in the rebelling Confederate states

26. What was Abraham Lincoln’s primary reason for waging the Civil War?
a. To preserve states’ rights
b. To abolish slavery
c. To preserve the Union
d. To end the Union

27. What cause is Martin Luther King Jr. best known for?
a. Advocating for segregation
b. Advocating for the abolition of slavery
c. Advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion
d. Advocating for racial equality under the law

28. How did the Cold War end?
a. The U.S. prevailed in the Cuban Missile Crisis
b. Russia invaded and occupied Ukraine
c. The Soviet Union Collapsed
d. The U.S., the European Union, and the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty

29. Who was president during the Great Depression and WWII?
a. Woodrow Wilson
b. Harry S. Truman
c. Franklin D. Roosevelt
d. Theodore Roosevelt

30. What is the name of the national anthem?
a. “The Star-Spangled Banner”
b. “America the Beautiful”
c. “This Land is Your Land”
d. “God Bless America”

31. Why are there thirteen stripes on the American flag?
a. One for each signer of the Declaration of Independence
b. To honor the Thirteenth Amendment
c. To commemorate America’s fallen soldiers
d. To symbolize the original colonies

32. Which national holiday honors those who died while serving in the U.S. military?
a. Armistice Day
b. Memorial Day
c. Veterans Day
d. Flag Day

33. Which of the following is a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance?
a. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
b. Of, by and for the people
c. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
d. One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all

34. From what does the United States government derive its power?
a. The Supreme Court
b. The people
c. The president

Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen Who Built It

Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen Who Built It

by Glenn Kurtz

Reviewed by Dr. Alan Singer, Hofstra University

In this book published by Seven Stories Press, Glenn Kurtz uncovers the identities of the Empire State Building construction workers, made famous by Lewis W. Hine’s legendary portraits. The book features more than 75 photos and other illustrations, some by Hine that have never been previously published. Astonishingly, no list of workmen on this historic landmark was ever compiled. While the names of the owners, architects, and contractors are well known, and Lewis Hine left us indelible images of the workers, their identities—the last generation of workmen still practicing these time-honored trades, have not been identified until author Glenn Kurtz unearthed their individual stories for this book. Drawing on eclectic sources — census, immigration, and union records; contemporary journalism; the personal recollections of their descendants — Kurtz assembles biographies of these workers, providing not only a portrait of the building’s labor force, and a revolutionary re-interpretation of Hine’s world-famous photographs, but also a fundamental reimagining of what made the Empire State Building a fitting symbol for the nation, built as it was at the very height of the Great Depression.

According to Erik Loomis, author of A History of America in Ten Strikes, “Capitalists build nothing. Workers build everything. Glenn Kurtz recovers the stories of the brave men who constructed the Empire State Building masterfully using Lewis Hine’s famous photographs of them. A wonderful book for anyone who cares about the stories of real workers.” Alastair J. Gordon, author of Naked Airport, praises Kurtz for “Working with a minimum of historical data, Kurtz has broken through the urban mythologies and written an insightful social history, not about the capitalist owners, investors, architects or contractors, but about the every day mortals — ironworkers, carpenters, crane operators and other unsung heroes — who actually built the Empire State Building during the height of the Great Depression… a revelatory contribution to the legacy of New York’s built environment.”

Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change

Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change

Edited by Bruce Dearstyne

Reviewed by Dr. Alan Singer, Hofstra University

Revolutionary New York celebrates the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the many historical changes that have occurred since, as reflected through the history of the state. This book explores “unfinished revolutions” in the Empire State: the two-and-a-half century struggle to realize the revolution’s ideals and bring increased freedom and opportunities to previously marginalized populations. It is an Excelsior Edition published by SUNY Press. It includes sixteen essays that explore different aspects of New York State history starting with a chapter on “The Oneida Rebellions, 1763 to 1784.” Editor Bruce Dearstyne provided chapters on the birth of New York State in 1777 and September 11, 2001. There are also chapters on the Erie Canal, slavery in New York State, the Triangle Fire and workplace safety, the Harlem Hellfighters, the struggle by women to win the right to vote, prohibition, the origins of the United Federation of Teachers union, Stonewall, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Jennifer Lemak, Chief Curator of History, New York State Museum, “From Indigenous uprisings and the building of the Erie Canal to suffrage and LGBTQ+ rights, New York State has long been at the forefront of America’s most significant social transformations. This book explores the people, places, and pivotal moments that shaped a more just and inclusive society—revealing how New Yorkers challenged injustice, redefined freedom, and left a lasting impact on our nation.”