African American Women, Education, and Self-Actualization: Confronting Gender and Racial Barriers in Religious Institutions

Background

Historically, American education was intentionally limited to specific populations. Breaking with Old World traditions, the newly independent nation instituted “public education” which is education at public expense (Spring, 2010). As such, questions of how revenues to fund the enterprise would be generated immediately arose, followed by who should be beneficiaries of education. Taxing property was the solution agreed upon by the founding fathers, thus ensuring school funding inequities that persist today (Kozol, 1991). Logically, they determined that public education should therefore benefit only those who paid property taxes—primarily free European American males who owned land. The founding fathers created a solution that excluded Native Americans, African Americans (even those few who may have been free and property owners), females, and other non-European residents. Still, the need to privilege members of the ruling elite resulted in free public education that reserved higher education for the sons of wealthy land owners, and thus perpetuated the ruling class (Sadovnik, Cookson, & Semel, 2006). The Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge of 1779 saw Thomas Jefferson advocating for three years of free education for non-slave children that would be limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic (Spring, 2010).