Race Philanthropy as a Tool for Subjugation

            Philanthropy has a connotation of helpful, charitable and good, but racial philanthropy existed independently from these ideals in many cases.  In my education class, we discussed race philanthropy and schools being funded in order to educate the newly freed black slaves.  However, this education consisted of subjugation and discrimination to create a further divide in racial distinctions.  Race philanthropy is the privatized support both publicly and financially for a specific race.  Beginning in the nineteenth century, many prominent philanthropist and educators including Thomas Jesse Jones, a social studies educator, under the guise of race philanthropy, set out to create institutions that would educate recently freed slaves to act according to these white upper class elites’ expectations.  Among the social norms that they would be expected to demonstrate were obedience and servitude.  As seen in The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, the intellect and education of the freed black slave became increasingly threatening to the white upper class elite, so much so that Thomas Jefferson denied the demonstration of intellect by Phillis Wheatley even though her poetry was verified.  The exploitation of race philanthropy by the white upper class elite created a continued subjugation of the black population and a continued division in social class.

            Did race philanthropy differ in the North and South? Race philanthropy sought to reproduce the social structure and class distinctions as seen during slavery.  The continued workforce of the black population as the backbone of labor in America became the utmost importance for the white southern elites.  I find these schools funded by philanthropy to act as a tool to subjugate the black population in a hidden curriculum.  The hidden curriculum at these schools would teach the qualities of subservience and obedience as the needed tools for success.  What would the curriculum look like in these schools specifically? 

            Stereotypes soon were placed into use by these upper class elites to suggest the need for education especially in these privatized schools that would act to reproduce the current social structure.  As seen in “African American Voices”, slaves were viewed as  “licentious, childlike, lazy, irresponsible, and incapable of freedom” (MIntz 3).  Furthermore, these philanthropists and educators found the newly freed black population to lack morality.  The only way to teach morality would be through these newly funded schools accorded to these upper class elites.  How did these upper class elites find their character to be immoral?  They seemed to need a justification through this stereotype in order to continue to subjugate the newly freed slaves.  Race philanthropy existed to further perpetuate class division based on race.  The desire of these schools was to continue the social structures as seen during slavery with the black population at the bottom of the social class.

Matt McKeand