Allison Davis: Forgotten black scholar studied – and faced – structural racism in 1940s America

When black historian Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926 (expanded to Black History Month in 1976), the prevailing sentiment was that black people had no history.

W. Allison Davis (1902-1983) came of age in the generation after Woodson, but he was precisely the type of exceptional black person whom Woodson liked to uphold as evidence of black intelligence, civility and achievement.

Bringing their experiences on the wrong side of the color line to mainstream social science, they made landmark contributions to their field, including “Deep South” (1941) and “Children of Bondage” (1940).

American schools remain as racially segregated as ever due to poverty and discriminatory public policies.

The investment in public education, especially compensatory programs such as Head Start, looks to further diminish amid the growing support for privatization, embodied in Betsy DeVos’ recent confirmation as secretary of education.

While the appointment did represent the crossing of a racial boundary and heralded the many more barriers that would be challenged in the ensuing decades, a closer look at the story gives little reason to celebrate.

Only through compiling a truly remarkable record of achievement, and only amid the national fervor to make the U.S. the “arsenal of democracy” during World War II, would Chicago even consider appointing Allison Davis.

Even with the subsidy, certain university faculty members, such as Georgia-born sociologist William Fielding Ogburn, actively opposed the appointment on racist grounds.

[...] this was a man who refused to surrender to despair, and who chose to dedicate his life to making the country a better, more equal, more democratic place.