“The Whole Mess Is American History”: Protest, Pedagogy, and Black Studies at a Desegregated High School in the South, 1967–1974

Abstract

V. P. Franklin, Dionne Danns, Gael Graham, Jon Hale, Dwayne C. Wright, Jill Titus, Jeanne Theoharis, Kathryn Schumaker, Dara Walker, and others have revealed the contours of high school student activism in postwar America. Although these scholars have explicated how students contributed to social movements, less attention has been paid to the consequences of activism. To illuminate those consequences, this article examines the rise and fall of Black studies at the desegregated Lane High School in Charlottesville, Virginia. In both higher education and K–12 contexts, the creation of Black studies stemmed from student activism. However, students at Lane High School had less input regarding course instructors, curriculum, and pedagogy than their peers in higher education. Furthermore, the lack of institutional support from both the high school adminsitrators and the Charlottesville City Schools undermined the Black studies elective course’s chances for success and led to its eventual demise.