The Atlantic

The Secret Network of Black Teachers Behind the Fight for Desegregation

In her new book, Vanessa Siddle Walker reveals how African American educators became the ‘hidden provocateurs’ who spearheaded the push for racial justice in education.
Source: Bettmann / Getty

For 25 years, the Emory University professor Vanessa Siddle Walker has studied and written about the segregated schooling of black children. In her , , Walker tells the little-known story of how black educators in the South—courageously and covertly—laid the groundwork for 1954’s and weathered its aftermath. The tale is told primarily through the life of , an acclaimed Georgia classroom teacher, principal, and one-time executive director of the Georgia Teachers and Education Association (GTEA), an organization for black educators founded in 1878. Later in his career, he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky; at the time, Georgia still banned black students from state doctoral programs. Walker first met Tate in 2000. Over the course of the next two years, he told her aboutclandestine meetings among decision—to protect the interests of black children.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Private Equity Has Its Eyes on the Child-Care Industry
Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET on February 22, 2024. Last June, years of organizing in Vermont paid off when the state’s House and Senate passed landmark legislation—overriding a governor’s earlier veto—that invests $125 million a year into its child-care s
The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

Related Books & Audiobooks