The Purpose of Education according to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Context of Critical Race Theory’s Place in the “Nice Field of Education"
by Saki Milton
“It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility, and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life... We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate...”
These are the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while he was just an undergraduate attending Morehouse College, and they could not be truer today as we enter Black American History Month 2022. Last week, we discussed several ideologies connecting public education with the attainment of the American Dream. I will humbly attempt to critique the damage resulting from the intentional miseducation of Dr. King’s principles through a critical race lens based on my novel understanding of Critical Race Theory’s (CRT) place in the “nice field of education” (Ladson-Billings, 1998) today.
As a public-school student, I distinctly remember learning about Dr. King’s non-violent and peaceful approach to protesting the extreme violence experienced by Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. However, I was in my mid-30's when I first learned that, according to declassified files unsealed by the National Archives, Dr. King was targeted by the FBI throughout the 1950s and 1960s even to the extent that he "must be destroyed at all costs". Even worse, 75% of Americans at that time disapproved of him; yet today his approval rating exceeds 90% of the American public.
King’s persona today is best described as “inspirational, peaceful, utopian, forgiving, and submissive. This palatable view of him makes White America believe that Black people should display those same qualities, even when faced with extreme oppression to the point that Black Americans are told how to exercise their Constitutional right to protest (Take a Knee, Black Lives Matter, I Can’t Breathe), whereas White Americans can storm the United States capital, vandalize it, threaten politicians lives, and murder a police officer while going unscathed for the most part.
This play nice in society has seeped into education. For instance, parents in Southlake, Texas, a very nice affluent community, is the center of a recent NBC podcast series highlighting how White parents across the nation are overpowering local school boards and pressuring state lawmakers to ban CRT. But why? Because they do not want their nice White children feeling bad about America’s past racial strife. So much so that 14 states have passed anti-CRT legislation, and 17 bills are currently in review (edweek.org). After all, race is “no longer” an issue because Black people, under the nice leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, now have equal rights under the law. Instead, we should all focus on nicer educational reform issues like school funding, students’ mental health and nutrition, digital divide, and pandemic learning loss that we can tackle together…anything but race; it’s too divisive! However, all of these issues lead back to the fact that racism is embedded into our legal system and into our school systems, including higher ed.
This is why I believe that CRT has found its way into the nice space of education because “racism is normal, not aberrant, in American society” (Ladson-Billings, 1998). I am keen to learn more about it because it requires me, as an emerging scholar, to interrogate the purpose of education through the lens of the most vulnerable, letting history inform a better future. It forces all stakeholders from all backgrounds to critically examine facts (past and present) still prevalent in 2022:
A child’s zip code can determine which kids will receive the most opportunities to succeed in the educational system because school funding is highly dependent upon property tax formulas.
One’s skin color and 3rd-grade reading ability can predict who will enter the prison pipeline.
Public schools are more racially segregated today than they were during the Civil Rights Movement.
Black boys are overrepresented in special education populations nationwide.
Black girls are 3 times more likely to receive in-school suspensions than White females (Morris, 2016).
When we whitewash or ignore educational problems rooted in race, we end up missing the truth of the matter. As seen with the mainstream coding of MLK’s nice rhetoric in educational texts and media, his actual violent message (not literal) for the masses was buried and thus forgotten. He died not only for democratic equality (voting rights, equal protection under the law, anti-draft Blacks who experienced discrimination at home), but also for social efficiency (quality education, job training, union support), and social mobility (adequate housing, employment, fair wages). These reasons are why the FBI believed that he was "the most dangerous Black man in America” (National Archives). Listening carefully, Dr. King was not being nice in his beloved “I Have a Dream” speech: “...America has given the Negro people a bad check...marked insufficient funds...we've come to cash this check..., that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” An ELAR teacher could use this speech as a lesson in tone, mood, and diction to prove my point.
Therefore, it seems to me that Dr. King never departed from his perspective as a young man on the purpose of education as both a tool of reason and of character building. He held true to his convictions, and this philosophy resonated in his rhetoric, activism until the very end. We are entering Black History Month, and I cringe at the anticipation of bombardment of nice performative activity on all fronts. But this year, I am challenging my family, friends, and colleagues to dig deeper and interrogate the nice overtones fed to us about the persistent role of race in educational policy. I am challenging myself and fellow educators to refuse to play nice-nice anymore and to think critically about why things are the way that they are in education. In the end, I believe that educators can work together, have some laughs and a few drinks along the way because this is hard work.
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, “brethren!” Be careful, teachers!” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., age 18
Sources:
Cobb, J. C. (2018, April 4). When Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he was less popular than Donald Trump is today. USA TODAY. Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-luther-king-jr-50-years-assassination-donald-trump-disapproval-column/482242002/
Gloria Ladson-Billings (1998) Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education?, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11:1, 7-24, DOI: 10.1080/095183998236863
Map: Where Critical Race Theory Is Under Attack (2021, June 11). Education Week. Retrieved Month Day, Year from http://www.edweek.org/leadership/map-where-critical-race-theory-is-under-attack/2021/06
Morris, M., Conteh, M., & Harris-Perry, M. (2018). Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (First Trade Paper ed.). The New Press.
“The Purpose of Education.” (2021, May 22). The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/purpose-education