Jim Crow's Pink Slip

Jim Crow's Pink Slip exposes the decades-long repercussions of a too-little-known result of resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education decision: the systematic dismissal of Black educators from public schools.

The Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but regrettably, it also ended the careers of a generation of highly qualified and credentialed Black teachers and principals. In the Deep South and northern border states over the decades following Brown, Black schools closed and Black educators were uniformly displaced.

By engaging with the complicated legacy of the Brown decision, Leslie T. Fenwick sheds light on a crucial chapter in education history. She also offers policy prescriptions aimed at correcting the course of US education, supporting educators, and improving workforce quality and diversity.

"Fenwick unstintingly documents the incalculable loss to our public education system-and by extension, to our country-through the deliberate purging of Black educators from the ranks of our teachers and principals post-Brown. Jim Crow's Pink Slip illuminates the systematic elimination of Black educators in a country unwilling to acknowledge their intellectual excellence and passion for the education of all children. A must-read for anyone who cares about our country and its public education system." -Lynn M. Gangone, president and chief executive officer, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education "If the pipeline of African American principals and teachers had been retained following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, would today's reality be different? Jim Crow's Pink Slip suggests it would be." -Carlos Santiago, commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Leslie T. Fenwick is a professor of education policy, dean emerita of the Howard University School of Education, and dean in residence at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. H. Richard Milner IV is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Education at Vanderbilt University, as well as the editor for the Race and Education Series.