Higher Education for African-American Youth

¶ … Higher Education for African-American Youth

In order to understand the significance of higher education for African-American youth relative to youths in general, one must have an understanding of the tremendous educational disparity that continues to exist in modern America. Many people naively adhere to the idea that equality of public educational opportunity translates into equal educations, without looking at the historical differences in educational opportunity and how they continue to impact modern African-Americans. The reality is that education is very cyclical in its nature; illiterate and sub-literate parents literally lack the tool to teach their children. Moreover, because a higher education is correlated with higher earning power, many poorly educated parents lack the financial wherewithal to pay someone for tutoring and other services that would place their children on equal footing with higher income children. Given the overrepresentation of African-Americans in the lower socioeconomic class, this problem, while not a uniquely black phenomenon, has a disproportionate impact on the black community. Therefore, higher educations for African-Americans can have a very significant impact on the black community.

Worldwide, poverty is linked to a lack of education, and this connection exists for many reasons, but is largely due to impoverished parents lacking the financial resources to send their children to school. Even when public schools are available, impoverished families may need their children in the workforce, earning money, rather than attending school. However, in America, there is an additional component to educational disparity that goes beyond financial disparity: the history of denying educational opportunities to African-Americans. For example, when slavery in the United States first began, and people of all racial backgrounds were likely to be involved in some type of chattel relationship, whether as a bond-servant, an indentured servant, or a slave, it was not uncommon for slaves to receive some type of rudimentary education. However, as slavery evolved into a racialized system that further negated rights for free blacks, it became common to outlaw education for slaves and for free African blacks in the southern states. Simply teaching a slave to read could result in punishment for the teacher and for the student. Therefore, literacy, the basic cornerstone of education, was virtually eradicated in the African-American community within a few generations, and those who were able to learn to read were not able to widely distribute those teachings for fear of reprisals. The end of slavery did not bring the end of intentional efforts to discourage learning in African-Americans; not only were school integrated throughout the Jim Crow south, but there were also intentional efforts to prevent people from educating African-Americans. For many Americans, those times seem like ancient history, but, even after the end of legalized segregated schools, how could parents who lacked basic educations provide help to their children? They could not, and the cycle of educational poverty continued as many African-Americans continued to fall behind their classmates, unable to access the most basic of homework assistance in their homes. Ensuring that a greater number of African-Americans have higher education means ensuring a higher average degree of education for the African-American community, and means that a greater number of African-American children will have access to basic educational resources.