Revisiting Charles H. Thompson's Proposals for Educating Gifted African American Students, 1933–1961

Abstract

Charles H. Thompson is best known as the founder and the first editor-in-chief of The Journal of Negro Education (1932-1963). Throughout his career, Thompson sought to extend educational opportunity in ways that were the good of Negro education as a whole. His main concern was in educating future leaders for service in African American communities. Therefore, he sought to shape curriculum and instruction at Howard in order to achieve that end. In 1939, Thompson suggested that there was a need for added specialization in African American higher education that would allow Howard to focus on educating gifted students of color. This article provides evidence that Thompson's model and methods are of continuing relevance.Keywords: higher education, gifted African American students, Howard University, leadership, low-income students, mentoring, student financial aid, Charles H. ThompsonAs arguably the most prominent dean in African American higher education during the era of segregation, from 1938 to 1963, Charles H. Thompson led a distinguished faculty at Howard University that was responsible for educating more students, and more gifted students, than any of its peer institutions. An unwavering critic of racial segregation, Thompson's ideas and ideals resonated powerfully among the African American professoriate of his day. As the founder and editor of The Journal of Negro Education (1932-1963), Thompson cemented his reputation as an activist and scholar while developing a coherent literature regarding African American education, educational inequality, and public policy (Ray, 2012). According to historian Michael R. Winston (M. R. Winston, personal communication, April 17, 1996), Thompson's model of leadership also resonated powerfully among his students at Howard University.During the era of segregation, a coterie of talented African American intellectuals such as Thompson responded to their exclusion from policymaking by transforming their classrooms, scholarly publications, and professional associations into sites that allowed them, and often their students, access into policymaking. Collectively and individually many of these scholars contributed insights that advanced the civil rights movement. Today, unfortunately, their ideas, methods, and contributions to the struggle to overturn segregation as public policy in the U. S. are often overlooked (Ray, 2012).This article focuses on Thompson's proposals for higher education that had implications for gifted African American students. It asks, what can we learn from his ideas that can be applied fruitfully today? How relevant are his ideas for current policies and practices regarding these students; and finally, what does his model of proactive advocacy suggest for contemporary scholars?FORMATIVE EXPERIENCESCharles Henry Thompson was born in Jackson, Mississippi on July 19, 1896 to loving parents, the Reverend Patrick Henry Thompson and Sara Byers Thompson. Both of his parents were teachers at Jackson College. Thompson's birth occurred during the year the U. S. Supreme Court sanctioned racial segregation by declaring in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that the policy was constitutional as long as African Americans were provided with separate but equal public accommodations. Historian Horace Mann Bond (1934/1966) had found that before 1896 the segregated African American and White public schools in the South operated at or near parity especially in those counties that were sparsely populated by African Americans. As the southern education movement gained momentum in the early 20th century, and the New South rose on an influx of northern capital, this parity in educational opportunity vanished (Anderson, 1988). To provide enhanced educational opportunities for the region's White youth, White school officials aggressively diverted the funding that the various segregated states had appropriated for African American education. Bond described the bargain struck by the region's planters to support White public education in the South in exchange for the political control of the various state governments. …