ABSTRACT
At the end of the previous chapter, I detailed a number of successful struggles over what was to count as official knowledge. In the segregated schools of Virginia, major transformations occurred that installed some strikingly powerful claims about the nature of wealth and power in American society. To say the least, these claims have resonance today as well. Perhaps because this curriculum was indeed created by and for the “Other” and the “Other” was seen as less important, these perspectives could have been instituted. Or perhaps it was the result of successful struggles and of the growing progressive understandings that were increasingly pervading much of society. Given the politics of curriculum and the ever-present compromises over official knowledge (Apple 2000), any explanation probably would entail elements of both causes. But no matter what the reasons, there can be no doubt that critical perspectives about the very structure of society that grew during the Depression, and had been visible within African American and other marginalized communities for years, were making advances and were being taught as legitimate knowledge to students in schools.
