Share with students the following additional context around responses to the educational inequality happening in the Boston Schools.
The Smith School was the only school in Boston where African American students were able to attend although there were 160 other schools for white students. The conditions and outcomes were deemed inferior at the Smith School and petitions for change had not been successful. In 1844, William Cooper Nell headed a movement, the Equal School Association, which led a boycott of the Smith school that lasted eleven years. During that time, attendance fell from 263 in 1840 to 51 in 1849. The boycott also caused increased tensions within the black community between those participating in the boycott and those who chose to send their children to school despite any reservations or dissatisfactions they might have had. Some members of the black community, including Nell, wanted the school committee to close the Smith School and allow black students to go to their neighborhood “white” school. Others, including Reverend James Simmons and Thomas P. Smith, petitioned the committee to maintain the separate “colored” school with reforms, such as appointing a black headmaster with a college degree.
- Introduce students to the following documents that represent arguments by Bostonians both in favor and against the segregation of schools in Boston. (Discussion Support Guide Available for Teacher Reference)
- Hand out the excerpts to all students. Set a timer for 15-20 minutes and ask students to read the documents and annotate the 4 sources. Annotations (highlighting and taking notes in the margins) should include:
- Who is writing the source? What perspectives might they be bringing to the source?
- Question marks when a student doesn’t understand a part of the passage.
- Write in the margins to express your own ideas or interpretations.
- Note/highlight any rationale for keeping the Smith School segregated.
- Note/highlight any rationale for making the other 160 Boston schools integrated
- Once students have had time to explore the texts on their own and annotate, make groups of 3-5 to give students the chance to discuss what they found.
- Instruct the groups to ask each student to share what they noted about each source. Limit speaking time to 1-2 minutes for each member of the group.
- Finally, ask the groups to collectively answer the following questions:
- What arguments were made in favor of ending segregated schools? Who seems to be most in favor of ending segregation? Why do you think that group is most interested in ending this practice?
- What arguments were made in favor of keeping segregated schools? Who seems to be most in favor of ending segregation? Why do you think that group is most interested in continuing this practice?