Segregation, Deculturalization, Assimilation: A Sad Chapter in the History of U.S. Public Education

The concept of “segregation,” which involved an effort to exclude the members of different races that had immigrated to or had been brought to the United States against their will, helped shape the nation’s approach to education during the 1800s and early 1900s. The founding fathers clearly stated their belief that the U.S. population should be predominantly White and Protestant, and that the education system should support supremacy of this group. However, almost from the beginning, there was the problem of Black slaves, especially in the South, and what to do with them in terms of schooling.