Just miles away but worlds apart: examining jewish participation in integration programs at Black Mountain College and Highlander Folk School, 1933-1964

Small liberal arts and folk schools attempted desegregation decades before other southern colleges and universities. Historians have long argued that Jews were active and influential in the fight for civil rights in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, but were Jews involved in these early attempts to...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:Research Article
Main Author: Soltz, Wendy F. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Pennsylvania Press [2017]
In: AJS review
Year: 2017, Volume: 41, Issue: 1, Pages: 203-233
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Racial segregation / Abolition of / Civil rights / Jews / Black Mountain College / Highlander Folk School
IxTheo Classification:BH Judaism
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Small liberal arts and folk schools attempted desegregation decades before other southern colleges and universities. Historians have long argued that Jews were active and influential in the fight for civil rights in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, but were Jews involved in these early attempts to enroll black students in historically white schools? If they were, were they successful and how did their Jewishness affect the efficacy of their attempts? In order to answer these questions, this article compares and contrasts two such schools, Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which established “integration programs” in the 1940s. This research reveals that when Jews saturated a school, and were visibly involved in desegregation, their attempts to desegregate the institution were ultimately unsuccessful. When Jews supported a school through donations behind the scenes and occasional visits, however, the institution successfully desegregated.
ISSN:1475-4541
Contains:Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0364009417000095