The Education of Negroes in Maryland

Abstract

Maryland has a biracial plan of education with four systems in effect: (1) a system of white public schools administered by county Boards of Education and supervised by the State Board of Education; (2) a system of Negro public schools administered by the white county Boards of Education and similarly related to the State Board; (3) a system of white public schools in Baltimore City, entirely independent of the State Board except in areas of cooperation with the State Teachers Colleges; and (4) a system of Negro public schools in Baltimore City under the control of the Board of School Commissioners. By virtue of the fact that all members of the State Board of Education and county boards of education are white, Negroes are denied the opportunityto participate in the government and administration of schools controlled by these bodies. The appointment of a Negro representative to the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners had been requested by Negro citizens for about a quarter of a century. A brief history of the movement and reasons for its justification were outlined by Carl Murphy, chairman of the Baltimore Citizens Committee for Justice, in a letter dated April 9, 1942, and addressed to the Honorable Howard W. Jackson, Mayor of Baltimore. Mr. Murphy listed three reasons for this proposal: (1) that colored children were in separate schools; (2) that they numbered 31,000 and constituted one-third of the entire school population; and (3) that the Board in its executive session needed the counsel of some one person who knew the colored people better than any of its members at that time possibly could.1 The Governor 's Commission on Problems Affecting the Negro population, appointed in 1942, expressed the belief that the appointment of a qualified Negro to the Board of School Commissioners would promote further unity in the administration of the community's program of public education. As a result of this study and the concentrated efforts of the spirited citizens, a Negro, George McMechen, was appointed to the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. Elmer A. Henderson, Negro, is Assistant Superintendent of Negro Schools in Baltimore City.