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This system of separate and unequal schooling of Black and White students persisted until the mid 1950s when the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education case forced integration of all public schools. This ruling technically ended de jure segregation, or intentional and government-sanctioned segregation in the public school system (Donato and Hanson 2012). However, once again, as with the abolition of slavery, the ideology behind de facto segregation, or that not enforced by the government but socially upheld through private practices in everyday life, was not addressed (Donato and Hanson 2012). Federal troops were called in to integrate schools and protect Black students against violent White protest. Slave ownership was no longer the means of conferring White privilege, access to a quality education was.

Racial retrenchment, the process by which racial progress obtained through policy gains is challenged or undermined by individual and collective actions, could be seen throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Whites fled neighborhoods that were becoming racially integrated and integrating neighborhood schools, creating impoverished urban centers and wealthy suburbs. The end of de jure segregation and efforts to integrate all-White schools was met with much counter-resistance from White communities. For example, school desegregation in Mississippi prompted the rise of private White segregationist academies starting in 1968 in many places, including New Orleans (Andrews 2002). For White parents, their options were to move to another school district, or create their own educational institutions, and many did. This is an example of a subtle attempt to maintain the racial order and promote disinvestment in public schools, hoarding the resources for better, higher-quality schools (Andrews 2002; Lipsitz 2015).

Today, schools are segregated again by race and by class. Those who did not have the resources to move (Blacks and other minorities) have been forced to stay in public schools despite, in some instances, deplorable conditions (Kozol 2012). The educational picture for Whites is mixed: some have entered private schools – in some instances, state-funded charter schools – and there does exist the rare integrated school district. The contemporary educational picture is complex, shaped by a myriad of competing factors from race to region, charters to the tax base. Yet the impact of Blacks’ historical marginalization within the educational system continues to profoundly affect their life chances.

William Sewell (1971), in his presidential address to the American Sociological Association, noted the importance of higher education in conferring economic rewards and social class mobility. Moreover, he stated that, “Those who fail to obtain this training, for whatever reasons, will be severely disadvantaged in the competition for jobs and in many other areas of social life as well” (Sewell 1971:794). Educator Beverley Anderson, in discussing the permissive and pervasive nature of inequality in schooling and society between Blacks and Whites, which builds on the correlation between economic advantage, racial privilege and schooling, notes:

Economic exploitation theory also suggests that racial prejudice has been helpful in maintaining the economic privilege of White Americans. Racial stratification secures better education, occupation, and income for Whites, thereby creating a vested interest in the continued existence of the economic status quo. It is easier to keep Blacks and other people of color who are viewed as inferior in low-status, low paying jobs – and, consequently, keep Whites in higher-status, better-paying jobs – if the latter are considered more “able” by virtue of the benefits gained from racial privilege. (Anderson 1994:445)

Once it was ensured that Blacks did not receive an adequate education, they were effectively locked out of the mainstream job market due to their lack of skills. While virulent racism severely limited occupational opportunities in the South and in the North as well (Landry 2000) prior to the Civil Rights Movement (CRM), after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and employers’ adoption of “egalitarian” labor principles, lack of qualifications became a justification that did not require malice. The majority of Blacks were not competitive with their White educated counterparts, effectively preventing them from posing an economic threat. This, in turn, secured the existence of an underclass due to the lack of employment/income options for the advancement of Blacks. Providing Blacks with a poor-quality “special” education hindered their upward mobility and served to prepare them for the “caste like position” ascribed to them in White society; providing a quality education for Whites served as a road to upward mobility and the means by which to maintain their advantage (Bullock 1967:89; Lieberson 1980:135).