Virginia Schools in the Great Depression

How did the Great Depression affect the system of racially segregated schooling in Virginia?

During the 1930s, African-American pupils made up approximately one-quarter of all pupils enrolled in Virginia public schools (see document 1). Virginia public education was rigidly segregated during the Jim Crow era: African-American students could only attend so-called Negro or Colored Schools, while the White schools enrolled all other students. Because of the relatively high proportion of African American pupils and the strict lines of racial division, asking how the Depression affected the enforcement of related to questions of racial boundaries is a particularly useful way to explore both the impact of economic crisis and public attitudes toward education.

The distribution during this era in Virginia meant that some districts had a African American majority population. In most of these districts, the school population was also majority African American population (see document 2). By comparing the number of pupils and classrooms in these districts to the average cost of instruction per pupil (per capita) thus provides especially revealing evidence of the inequalities of segregated schooling. In Mecklenburg County, for example, African American pupils made up a majority (56%) of enrollment, yet the county school system spent almost three times as much on average on white students as it did on African American students. In every county on this list, as in every school district across Virginia, the per capita spending on white students was higher than on African American students, thus illustrating how broadly and deeply embedded was this system of separate and unequal.

When the Depression began to affect Virginia schools, African American educators quickly realized that their schools, with their chronic underfunding, poor facilities, and limited public support, were going to be especially hard hit. According to George Binford, the principal of Buckingham Training School in Dinwiddie, the Depression confronted young people, and especially Negro youth, with "one of the most discouraging situations of this age" (see document 3). Echoing the sense of despair, but also the possibility of dramatic change expressed by some educators across the United States, Binford also declared that this sense of crisis could well "revolutionize our present form of government and education." As this article suggests, some African American leaders saw the potential for radical change even in this time of crisis.

Yet for most educators in Virginia, the Depression was primarily a challenge to make decisions to maximize available resources while minimizing the costs of reductions in spending. Most schools for African Americans were administered under the same system of local and state offices, which meant that decisions about funding reflected the prejudices as well as the priorities of educational officials. At the state level, the so-called supervisor of Negro education was assigned particular responsibility for African American schools. The actions of this office drew the attention of African American educators, as well as parents and community leaders, who were both supportive of efforts to improve education for their pupils while also suspicious of how funds and other resources were being allocated at the state and local level (see document 4).

During this era of Jim Crow segregation, African American teachers were not permitted to join the Virginia Education Association, whose members were exclusively white teachers, principals, and other educators. The Virginia Teachers Association was thus formed to represent the specific interests of African American educators, while also addressing broader educational issues both within Virginia and nationally. With the onset of the Depression, the Virginia Teachers Bulletin, published by the VTA, devoted considerable attention to the impact of the economic crisis on African American schools and the sacrifices required of pupils, parents, and teachers (see document 5). As this editorial suggests, while the organized voice of African American teachers was calling attention to the differential impact of the economic crisis, the tone of such appeals was restrained. This editorial suggests that at least some African American educators still looked to the white men running the schools for assistance in removing "the handicaps under which Negroes educate their children." As will be seen in the final set of documents in this module, however, already by the time this editorial appeared, other strategies were emerging that allowed African American educators to become more forceful in their efforts to demand educational equality.

Statistical evidence of the separate and unequal schooling during the 1930s is found in a comparison of per capita expenses. At the elementary level (see document 6), per capita funding declined in the early 1930s and then rose unevenly for several years, before increasing significantly by the end of the decade. As funding increased for schools, the ratio also changed slightly, so that African American schools were receiving a higher proportion of per capita costs by decade's end. In the early part of the decade, however, as the impact of the Depression was felt most acutely, African American pupils received only about one-half as much per capita funding as their white counterparts.

As suggested above, African American educators were openly concerned about the differential impact of the Depression on education. A 1931 editorial in the Journal & Guide, a newspaper published for the African American community in Norfolk, called attention to the "added burden" of decreased funding at a time of increased enrollment (see document 7). As this editorial indicates, however, any suggestion that additional facilities and funding for African American students come at the expense of White children was unlikely to receive a positive response for school administrators. By proposing this change, however, this editorial illustrates how the crisis of the Depression provoked both criticism of the system of educational inequality and the pursuit of strategies to overcome these injustices.

Teachers' salaries emerged as a specific issue that focused attention on the most obvious discrepancies of this system. While recognizing that the Depression affected all teachers, an editorial in the Virginia Teachers Bulletin argued that cutting the salaries of all teachers by the same amount would have a more negative effect on African American teachers whose salaries were already much lower (see document 8). The question of salary equalization thus emerged in the context of the Depression as both a measure of racial inequality and a strategy to pursue improvements in African American education.

Even as these first steps toward equalization were being discussed, however, African American educators sought to demonstrate their contributions to the cause of education. Thus a 1934 article in the Virginia Teachers Bulletin praised the "optimism and courage" demonstrated by teachers, parents, and pupils as they dealt with conditions which were not as bad as previously but which still needed improvement (see document 9). This positive approach to education was tied directly to the struggle for recognition of the citizenship of African Americans, which was in turn connected to "our responsibilities as a racial group." From this perspective, African Americans should respond to the Depression was not just by coping with difficult economic conditions, but in fact rising above these conditions to demonstrate their greater worthiness of citizenship.

This positive approach was not shared by all activist educators. Already by this era, the organized proponents of a more confrontational approach to demanding equality. One of the first steps in this direction was to document obvious examples of educational inequality. A set of photographs comparing white and Negro schools in Wise county illustrated this strategy, as the obvious improvements in white consolidated schools, such as brick construction and windows, in addition to simply being much larger and thus accommodating more students, were easily contrasted with wooden buildings with limited facilities that could enroll a much smaller number of African American pupils (see document 10).

The consequences of school segregation were visible in the very appearance of schools, as in these photographs, and perhaps less obviously but equally systematically in the cost of instruction, in teachers' salaries, and in the burdens of attending and teaching school. Only occasionally do the sources from this era provide obvious evidence of openly racist attitudes in education. When these views were articulated, however, African America educators cited them as evidence of the kinds of views maintaining a system of unequal education (see document 11). While the expression of these views confirmed the underlying principles of Jim Crow segregation, the critical response to these comments also demonstrates how schools fit into an emerging campaign of mobilizing against the system of segregation.

As suggested above, teachers' salaries provide a measure of both the impact of the Depression and a focal point of new strategies for achieving racial equality. Already by 1931, even as the first effects of the Depression were being felt, the Virginia Teachers' Association launched a campaign to achieve salary equalization (see document 12). Starting with an effort to document the inequality in salaries based exclusively on race, this campaign drew upon the support of teachers as well as community leaders to make the case that African Americans should not be paid less than white teachers based exclusively on racial categories. The fact that so many teachers signed petitions supporting this goal provides strong evidence that both the objective of salary equalization and the strategy of pressing this demand through an organized campaign were widely accepted. The positive endorsement of these efforts by a leading African American newspaper provides further evidence of the significance of this campaign (see document 13).

While salary equalization emerged as a crucial objective, African American educators continued to struggle for a variety of improvements in their conditions even as they expanded their commitment to educational achievement. As economic conditions began to improve by mid-decade, African American teachers found new ways to express their commitment to educational improvement (see document 14). Whereas earlier articles and editorials had emphasized the need for optimism and courage in the face of unprecedented crisis, the tone of publications a few years later was perhaps even more determined to end acceptance of the status quo in favor of seeking more dramatic changes in African American education in Virginia.

The most significant moment in the history of African American education in Virginia in this decade occurred in 1940, when the federal courts ruled in favor of legal suits brought by two African American teachers, Aline Black and Melvin Alston. As described in an editorial in the Virginia Teachers' Bulletin, this court ruling required that Norfolk schools must pay Negro teachers and white teachers according to the same salary scales (see document 15). The editorial praised this court decision as "the beginning of the end of the shameful practices" of segregated schooling, "the closing of a dark and disgraceful chapter in the history of public education in this country," and "a vindication of our democratic form of government" and "proof positive that our courts of justice are a refuge for the lowliest and most downtrodden members of our body politic." While conceding that further efforts would be needed to overcome remaining obstacles, this editorial clearly indicates that the salary equalization campaign had reached a significant turning point in this struggle for an end to separate and unequal schooling.

In addition to showing the great significance attached to this decision at the time, this editorial also anticipates the struggle that would emerge during the next fifteen years. The salary equalization cases would be followed by further legal campaigns, led once again by lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which would culminate in 1954 in the Supreme Court decision overturning segregated schooling across the South. The racial boundaries that shaped African American education in Virginia during the Depression would thus face legal dismantling by a court that acted to continue the struggle for equality that emerged among teachers in the early 1930s.