A Forgotten Migration by Crystal Sanders
A Forgotten Migration explores the overlooked history of “segregation scholarships,” a practice used by Southern states in the U.S. to fund Black students’ graduate education before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Following the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson, these states were supposed to offer “separate but equal” graduate programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or admit Black students to Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Instead, many chose to pay for Black students to attend out-of-state graduate programs. Crystal R. Sanders highlights the experiences of these students who moved to the North, Midwest, and West to pursue their graduate education. These students’ journeys were marked by significant obstacles, including arduous travel, financial strain, “racial discrimination, isolation, and homesickness.” Although the Brown decision began to phase out “segregation scholarships,” progress in integrating Southern graduate programs was slow. Sanders reveals how these efforts to uphold segregation not only perpetuated racial inequality but also deprived public HBCUs of critical funding, deepening the inequities in American higher education that we continue to see today.
Crystal R. Sanders, author A Forgotten Migration
To learn more about Sanders story and motivation for writing the book, I talked with her. First, I asked how, as a historian, she became interested in “segregation scholarships.” She shared, “Growing up in rural North Carolina, I noticed that many of the retired Black public school teachers in my church had master’s degrees from NYU and Columbia University’s Teachers College. Quick math let me know that they had earned these degrees in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I asked my father why these women had chosen to go so far away for graduate school and he answered my question with a question: ‘Did they really have a choice?’” Sanders elaborated, “My dad’s comments stayed with me and I began exploring the credentials of Black public school teachers in the decades before desegregation and realized that Black teachers all over the South seemed to have these degrees from northeastern and midwest institutions.”
Sanders learned, throught her archival research, that southern states provided Black students tuition assistance to keep them from attending southern flagship institutions for graduate school. As she continued her research, she realized that this “practice was not limited to teachers and that Black doctors, attorneys, pharmacists, and nurses had also been compelled to leave home with state ‘support’ to reach their highest potential.” While writing A Forgotten Migration, the Emory University professor coined the phrase “segregation scholarships” to describe the practice of southern states paying for Black students to attend graduate school outside of their state. In essence, the purpose of these scholarships was to preserve segregation.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 07: President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Fred … [+] Gray, one of the first Black members of the Alabama state legislature since Reconstruction, during a ceremony to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to seventeen recipients (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
A Forgotten Migration is thoroughly researched and written in an engaging manner that shares moving stories. I was interesed in the stories that really resonated with Sanders and asked her to share one that was particularly telling. She pointed to the story of attorney Fred Gray. According to Sanders, “He embodies the point I make that my book is not a brain drain narrative. The overwhelming majority of segregation scholarships returned to the South after completing their postbaccalaureate training. Attorney Gray recalled that even before he left his native state of Alabama for Ohio, he had already made up his mind that he was coming back to Alabama to make the state live up to the constitutional obligations to ALL citizens. While in law school, he had a methodical study plan to ensure his success on the Alabama Bar exam since his law school only focused on Ohio statutes.” She added, “His story also sticks out because of the extraordinary success he has had in using the law as a weapon to help rank and file Americans. Attorney Gray’s record of victories is long and I dare say that there is not one Alabamian whose life has not been enriched by his work.”
Given my own background studying HBCUs, I was interested in “the Debt Owed to Public Black Colleges” that Sanders refers to in the subtitle of A Forgotten Migration. As she explained, “I think segregation scholarships explain much of the financial crises that we see public Black colleges experiencing today.” Sanders elaborated, “Southern state governments have severely underfunded these institutions. I am hopeful that southern and border state legislatures will pass legislation allocating significant funding to address the decades of state neglect and underfunding. If these statehouses lack the will to do so, I expect to see alumni of public Black colleges bring lawsuits that demand redress.” Of note, the debt owed to public Black colleges has been the subject of several stories in Forbes, including “How America Cheated Its Black Colleges,” and my own “A Dirty Open Secret.”
When talking with Sanders, I asked her to expand upon the impact of the “segregation scholarships” on HBCUs today. She shared, “With respect to segregation scholarships and graduate and professional school programs, the funding scheme deprived Black colleges of tuition revenue-generating programs that would have significantly strengthened the finances of these institutions. As more and more Black students apply to HBCUs today in the wake of the affirmative action decision[s] and are not admitted (not because of academics but because of lack of housing and other campus resources), we must ask ourselves what could have been and what should be if southern states had not used finite tax dollars to send Black students out-of-state rather than build up their in-state Black institutions.”
A Forgotten Migration is an important contribution to understanding the structural inequalities in American higher education and larger society. By examining the historical roots of “segregation scholarships” and their implications, Sanders challenges us to reflect on the cost of preserving segregation and the steps needed to address it’s long-lasting impact.
