It is a brazen, right wing, media enabled, LIE most black students don't want to learn. It is a historical FACT blacks were prohibited from learning.
The most oppressive limits on slave education were a reaction to Nat Turner's Revolt in Southampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1831. This event not only caused shock waves across the slaveholding South, but it had a particularly far-reaching impact on education over the next three decades. The fears of slave insurrections and the spread of abolitionist materials and ideology led to radical restrictions on gatherings, travel, and—of course—literacy. The ignorance of the slaves was considered necessary to the security of the slaveholders (Albanese 1976). Not only did owners fear the spread of specifically abolitionist materials, they did not want slaves to question their lot; thus, reading and reflection were to be prevented at any cost.
African Americans recognize the power and the importance of education hence the formation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which to this day are full of black student who not only want to learn, but are learning.
HBCUs actually were "invented" in 1837, 26 years before the end of slavery. Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist, founded the Institute for Colored Youth to train free blacks to become teachers.
The school had moved from Philadelphia to Cheyney, where it eventually became Cheyney University, and by 1902 at least 85 schools were set up by white philanthropists, free blacks, states or churches to educate sons and daughters of former slaves.
Until 1954 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which ended "separate but equal" school systems, HBCUs were the number 1 option for most blacks interested in attending college.
The Brown v Topeka Board of Education decision gave us Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine. Brave, black students who volunteered to integrate the public school system.
Let us not forget what Vivian Malone Jones lived through when she integrated The University of Alabama despite then Governor George C. Wallaces' infamous stand in the school house door.
Fast forward to 2011 when an Arkansas school district won't allow a black valedictorian
After four years of nearly straight-As, Honors and Advanced Placement classes, 18-year-old Kymberly Wimberly achieved the highest GPA at McGehee Secondary School southeast of Little Rock, Ark., according to a court complaint.
However, instead of awarding the student for her hard work and dedication, the school denied her the valedictorian status because she was black, claims the document filed by Wimberly's lawyer, John W. Walker.
According to the court document, this is not the first time this has happened in the school's history:
"[The] defendant's actions were part of a pattern and practice of school administrators and personnel treating the African-American students less favorably than the Caucasian ones...Until Wimberly, the last African-American valedictorian in the McGeeHee school district was in 1989."
This is proof they are still standing in the school house door.
