The Black Response to the Blair Education Bill

Crofts, Daniel W.

doi:10.2307/2205919

Cited by 7 publications

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“…The Lodge bill narrowly passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. The Blair education bill twice passed the Senate but was defeated in the House (Crofts 1971).…”

Section: The Grant and Harrison Administrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presidential Responsiveness to Black Interests From Grant to Biden: The Power of the Vote, the Power of Protest

Smith¹

2021

Pres Stud Q

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The Biden administration is the most responsive to Black interests since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. This article places the administration's responsiveness in historical perspective by examining presidential responsiveness to Black interests, beginning with the presidency of Ulysses Grant, and focusing on the role of Black protest and the Black vote in activating responsiveness. After a brief discussion of theories of presidential power and responsiveness to Black interests, the article examines the factors that shaped the Biden administration's responsiveness, especially the role of the Black Lives Matter protests; the substantive content of the Biden policies; and their likely effectiveness in an era of partisan polarization and in the historical context of the presidency and race reform.

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“…The Lodge bill narrowly passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. The Blair education bill twice passed the Senate but was defeated in the House (Crofts 1971).…”

Section: The Grant and Harrison Administrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presidential Responsiveness to Black Interests From Grant to Biden: The Power of the Vote, the Power of Protest

Smith¹

2021

Pres Stud Q

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“…56 The difficulty of fighting against white women's prejudice was clearly wearing on Harper.That same year, she referred to herself as "pained" by their indifference.5 7 In 1887, when the national WCTU began to gather petitions in favor of the National Education Bill, also called the Blair Education Bill after its sponsor Republican Senator Henry W. Blair of New Hampshire, Harper was newly optimistic. Senator Blair, the chair of the Senate Education and Labor Committee from 1881 to 1891, proposed using federal taxes to help fund public schools in those states that had the highest levels of illiteracy, most of them in the South 58. If the bill passed, millions of dollars would be distributed over a ten-year period equally to black and white segregated schools throughout the South.59 The proposed legislation would benefit Southern blacks who were severely disadvantaged financially and faced poor facilities and a lack of books in their state education systems.…”

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confidence: 99%

5 Frances Watkins Harper and the Search for Women’s Interracial Alliances

Parker

2012

Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Equal Rights

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The Blair Education Bill: A Lost Opportunity in American Public Education

Jenkins

Peck

2020

Stud. Am. Pol. Dev.

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Through the 1880s, Senator Henry Blair (R-NH) spearheaded an effort to erode local control of education by turning Congress into a source of funds and oversight for state-level primary and secondary schools. The Blair Bill won support from an interregional, interracial, bipartisan coalition. It passed in the Senate on three separate occasions, was endorsed by presidents, and was a frequent topic of discussion among party elites. Yet in 1890 the bill failed for the last time, and local control would go largely unchanged until the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In this article we explore the decade-long battle surrounding Blair's proposal. Our analysis focuses on this lost opportunity as a way of highlighting the coalitional and institutional dynamics that work to prevent reform in an otherwise favorable environment. In this way, we contribute to a large literature on the uneven course of American state development.

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The Black Response to the Blair Education Bill

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Presidential Responsiveness to Black Interests From Grant to Biden: The Power of the Vote, the Power of Protest

Presidential Responsiveness to Black Interests From Grant to Biden: The Power of the Vote, the Power of Protest

5 Frances Watkins Harper and the Search for Women’s Interracial Alliances

The Blair Education Bill: A Lost Opportunity in American Public Education

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