Arendt on Education, Race, and the Little Rock Crisis

Introduction

Hannah Arendt was a commentator on the nature of power, authority, and totalitarianism throughout her career as a political theorist. Her insights on these areas shaped contemporary understanding of political crises and influenced discourse in political theory as well as other fields, such as education and pedagogy (Biesta, 2010). However, her views on education with respect to the Black experience in particular betray a lack of understanding — or, more precisely, a simplistic view of that experience. Understanding the Little Rock Crisis is not merely a matter of understanding education; it is ultimately a matter of understanding the Black experience (Warren, 1965). This paper explains why that is and how it can be used to deepen and extend Arendt's views on education. Despite her compelling analysis of education in "dark times," Arendt's limited perspective on Black Americans leads to her failure to provide a comprehensive consideration of the intersection of race and education, underscoring the need for a more nuanced analysis of her works.

Arendt's Ideas on Power, Authority, and the Political Realm

Arendt maintains a clear perspective about education's purpose during periods she terms "dark times" — periods where societal order seems to crumble under political, social, or ideological crises (Veck & Gunter, 2020). However, her perspective focuses more on the politics of power and is less concerned with the movement of a people. That is where its limitations arise. To understand those limitations, it is first helpful to understand what power and authority mean to Arendt.

Power, according to Arendt (1970), is never the property of an individual. Instead, it belongs to a group and remains in existence only as long as the group keeps together. It relates directly to the capacity to act in concert. Authority, in turn, is described as an unproblematic necessity within a community — it ensures that society's order is maintained (Arendt, 1968). Following from that, the political realm is the sphere of freedom where citizens participate in discourse that shapes the community's destiny (Arendt, 1958).

Arendt's ideas about education follow from these central concepts. She proposes that education's purpose during "dark times" — periods where societal order seems to crumble under political, social, or ideological crises — is to serve as a mechanism of preservation: preserving the old world for the new generation (Arendt, 1961). She contends that in times of crisis, education's responsibility is to offer continuity to young learners, much as healthcare workers are tasked with offering continuity of care to patients.

Even though these insights may seem logical, her understanding of the racial complexities inherent in Black American experiences has been criticized as considerably simplistic (Rodriguez, 2008). The limited racial lens through which Arendt viewed the world fails to comprehensively consider the intersection of race and education. Through a critical review of her major works — including On Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, "Crisis in Education," and "Reflections on Little Rock" — one can see how a broader perspective could strengthen her educational philosophy.

The Little Rock Crisis

The Little Rock Crisis was a pivotal event in the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. It took place in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, when the local school board decided to comply with the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

The board's plan was to begin desegregation in the fall of 1957 at Little Rock Central High School. Nine African American students, known as the "Little Rock Nine," were selected to attend the previously all-white school. Their enrollment was met with fierce resistance from the local white community. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus escalated the situation by deploying the state's National Guard to block the students from entering the school, citing concerns for public safety. This action defied federal law and sparked a constitutional crisis over the enforcement of the Supreme Court's ruling.

In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened by sending in federal troops to protect the rights of the Little Rock Nine and ensure they could attend school safely. This marked the first time since the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War that federal military power was used to uphold African Americans' civil rights.

The Little Rock Crisis became a symbolic event in the struggle for civil rights, demonstrating both the fierce resistance to desegregation in certain parts of the country and the federal government's willingness to enforce civil rights laws and court rulings. The events in Little Rock also drew international attention to the civil rights struggle and increased pressure on the United States to address its racial injustices.

References

Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press.

Arendt, H. (1959). Reflections on Little Rock. Dissent Magazine.

Arendt, H. (1961). Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. Viking.

Arendt, H. (1968). Crises of the Republic. Harcourt.

Arendt, H. (1970). On Violence. Harcourt.

Biesta, G. (2010). Hannah Arendt and the idea of public pedagogy. In Handbook of public pedagogy: Education and learning beyond schooling (pp. 51–59). Routledge.

Ellison, R. (1953). The World and the Jug. The Reporter.

Rodriguez, M. (2008). The challenges of keeping a world: Hannah Arendt on administration. Polity, 40(4), 488–508.

George, R. C., Maier, R., & Robson, K. (2020). Ignoring race: A comparative analysis of education policy in British Columbia and Ontario. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), 159–179.

Veck, W., & Gunter, H. M. (Eds.). (2020). Hannah Arendt on educational thinking and practice in dark times: Education for a world in crisis. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Warren, R. P. (1965). Who Speaks for the Negro? Random House.