“Subtle, vicious effects”: Lillian Steele Proctor's Pioneering Investigation of Gifted African American Children in Washington, DC

Sevan G Terzian

doi:10.1017/heq.2021.22

Abstract

AbstractThis essay examines the first detailed study of gifted African American youth: Lillian Steele Proctor's master's thesis from the late 1920s on Black children in Washington, DC. Unlike formative research on gifted children by educational psychologists, Proctor's investigation emphasized children's experiences at school, home, and community in determining their abilities, opportunities, and accomplishments. Proctor's work also anticipated African American intellectuals’ critiques of racist claims about intelligence and giftedness that would flourish in the 1930s. In focusing on the nation's capital, her investigation drew from a municipality with a high proportion of African American residents that was segregated by law. Proctor pointed directly to systemic racism as both contributing to the relative invisibility of gifted African American youth and in thwarting opportunities to realize their intellectual potential. In an environment of racial subordination and segregation, these gifted children found themselves excluded from cultural resources and educational opportunities.

Highlights

In 1927, an eight-year-old boy named Jesse Marchant attended sixth grade in the Washington, DC, public schools
Some have pointed to counternarratives from African American intellectuals in the early twentieth century, who argued that environmental conditions or flawed measurements explained racial disparities in intelligence testing
“Though we note a tendency in the District Schools towards group instruction of homogeneous groups, greater emphasis upon individual instruction, and the provision of special facilities for retarded groups,” Proctor lamented, “we find the Washington public school system making no special provision for superior children in Divisions 10–13.”46 In consulting with teachers, Proctor found that nine of the students in her study received customized reading and research assignments, and in her estimation, only one of those projects was appropriate for the student’s high ability and sufficiently distinct from the regular curriculum