Chapter 2: Radicalizing the Schoolhouse: The Overlooked Civil Rights Agenda of Black Educators in South Carolina Since Reconstruction

Like Black teachers across the southern United States, Black educators in South Carolina shaped the field of education by demanding education as a fundamental civil right. Their work demonstrates the political nature of teaching and the educational landscape. Teachers continue a historical tradition of sowing seeds of resistance that transform education and society. Since their founding in the post-Reconstruction era, Black teacher’s associations like the Palmetto Education Association in South Carolina utilized their organizations to improve educational opportunities, demand salary equalization, improve working conditions, and ultimately the right to work during the era of desegregation. The history of the Palmetto Education Association and other Black teacher associations contextualizes the current lack of diversity in the teacher workforce while concomitantly demonstrating the political possibilities of Black teachers in the era of Black Lives Matter.