The abolitionist movement not only helped bring an end to slavery in the United States but also inspired the large-scale admission of African Americans to the country's colleges and universities. Oberlin College changed the face of American higher education in 1835 when it began enrolling students irrespective of race and sex. Camaraderie among races flourished at the Ohio institution and at two other leading abolitionist colleges, Berea in Kentucky and New York Central, where Black and white students allied in the fight for emancipation and civil rights. After Reconstruction, however, color lines emerged on even the most progressive campuses. For new generations of white students and faculty, ideas of fairness toward African Americans rarely extended beyond tolerating their presence in the classroom, and overt acts of racial discrimination against Blacks grew increasingly common by the 1880s. John Frederick Bell's Degrees of Equality analyzes the trajectory of interracial reform at Oberlin, New York Central, and Berea, noting its implications for the progress of racial equality in nineteenth-century America. Drawing on student and alumni writings, institutional records, and promotional materials, Bell uses case studies to interrogate how abolitionists and their successors put their principles into practice. The ultimate failure of these social experiments illustrates a tragic irony of interracial reform, as the achievement of African American freedom and citizenship led whites to divest from the project of racial pluralism.
John Frederick Bell is assistant professor of history at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
"Bell has produced a solid work of scholarship and a moving testament to the determination of Black students who fought for both equal education and equal rights."--American Historical Review "Degrees of Equality explores the limited success of a wave of interracial experiments in the mid-nineteenth century: the three abolitionist institutions of Oberlin College, New York Central College, and Berea College. . . . This book will interest scholars of higher education, religious reform movements, and racial and gender equity, as well as educators and administrators committed to diversity and inclusion today."--Journal of American History "John Frederick Bell expertly blends social and institutional history to offer a bold reconsideration of three nineteenth-century 'abolitionist colleges'--Oberlin College in Ohio, New York Central College, and Berea College in Kentucky. . . . Degrees of Equality makes a powerful contribution to a long tradition of work on slavery and white supremacy in the nineteenth century that emphasizes themes of hypocrisy, decline, and the unfulfilled promise of the emancipation moment."--Journal of Southern History "Degrees of Equality is an insightful analysis of the role of education in the struggle for racial equality in the United States. . . . [It] is an important contribution to the scholarship on the history of race and education, and it should be of interest to anyone curious about the ongoing struggle for social justice in America."--Louisiana History "Given Bell's insightful analysis, not to mention his always accessible and often beautiful writing, Degrees of Equality deserves a wide readership. The book will likely become a classic interpretation of U.S. higher education in the 19th century."--Reviews in Higher Education "A compassionate yet clear-eyed look at the work of nineteenth-century abolitionist colleges, Degrees of Equality shows how 'the ideal of a multiracial democracy' was both supported and subverted by three institutions whose missions stressed the 'radical' struggle for racial equality. A meditation on the external as well as internal challenges of interracialism on campus, this book will be useful to historians and higher-education leaders alike." --Adam R. Nelson, author of The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston's Public Schools, 1950-1985 "John Frederick Bell details how nineteenth-century abolitionist colleges--among the most progressive of their time--both advanced and undermined causes of racial justice. By chronicling their experimentation with interracial education, Bell reveals how the racial politics of these schools evolved in a nonlinear fashion and interacted with racial discourse within the national context. He places the experiences of African Americans front and center, allowing readers to encounter Black students' and faculty's own assessments of the 'degrees of equality' they experienced at abolitionist colleges. Degrees of Equality helps us contemplate the role higher education must play in disrupting racial inequality. And much of this work requires abandoning the very institutional patterns detailed in this book, too many of which persist in colleges today. In that abolition is an unfinished project, today's colleges might further this cause by learning from the successes and shortcomings of abolitionist colleges of the nineteenth century." --Jarvis R. Givens, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching "Too often the story of interracial education starts with mid-twentieth-century efforts at public school desegregation, overlooking how commitments to teaching and learning across the color line have roots in the years before the Civil War. This illuminating history of three pioneering institutions--Berea, New York Central, and Oberlin--shows how a potent mix of education and equality has always fueled American democracy's best ideals." --Martha S. Jones, author of Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America
