The topic of racial inequalities in education has long been an issue of sociological as well as societal concern. Some feel that it can be explained by the economic and political situation in which educational institutions are embedded. This study looks at racial inequalities in the southern United States at two crucial points of transition -- 1890 to 1910, when blacks were disfranchised and stripped of citizenship rights, and 1960 to 1980, when blacks regained the vote and a place in the political process. The goal is to examine the educational consequences of these dramatic political transformations, and the way in which political structures tempered the effect of the economy on educational inequality in the form of enrollments and educational opportunities. The economy may change, but have little effect on racial inequality. For example, the racial state was very much in place in both 1910 and 1960, although the southern economy was altered considerably by the decline of plantation agriculture that followed from New Deal political policies. The study will use a variety of data sources, including U. S. Census material as well as state-by-state reports of enrollments and other characteristics of school systems across the years, along with rates of black voter registration across states. The principal outcome of interest is educational opportunities, in the form of enrollment rates for black and whites, level of public school segregation, and the experience of white flight from public schools. This research will provide a comprehensive study of racial inequality in Southern education. The formalization and institutionalization of inequality in the early part of the century as well as the unravelling of these institutional arrangements in the period since the 1960s are important topics -- historically and theoretically.
