Images

Christopher Gipson, Ph.D., Ed.D., is a 2026 graduate of the Ed.D. program in Educational and Professional Practice at Antioch University.

Dissertation Committee:

John Scott, Ph.D., Committee Chair 

Richard Kahn, Ph.D., Committee Member

Kimberly Hardy, Ed.D., Committee Member

Keywords

racialized targeting of African Americans, anti-Blackness in education, institutionalized racism, white supremacy in education

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

For African Americans, the legacy of racial oppression extends across centuries, from the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement to the persistence of institutionalized racism, White supremacy, racial violence, and structural inequality within the United States. These racialized systems are reproduced intergenerationally through social institutions, education, media, political discourse, historical narratives, and cultural representations that repeatedly normalize negative constructions of Africans and African Americans. Such representations operate on conscious and subconscious levels, shaping social attitudes, institutional practices, and perceptions of racial difference. As argued in White Fear / Black Apprehension: An Analysis of White European American Racism and Mob Violence Through the Lens of the Lynching of African Americans in Southern U.S. States (Gipson, 2024), departures from the social centrality and perceived superiority of Whiteness have historically generated resistance, hostility, and racialized backlash.

This dissertation examines the racialized targeting of African American children and young adults within Southern United States educational systems between 1865 and 1965. It investigates how educational institutions, policies, practices, and racial violence functioned as mechanisms for maintaining White supremacy following emancipation and throughout the Jim Crow era. Critical autoethnography provides the principal methodological and interpretive framework, allowing personal experience, historical evidence, archival imagery, and scholarly literature to be placed in conversation with one another. Drawing upon Ellis and Bochner’s (2000) conceptualization of autoethnography, the study recognizes lived experience as a legitimate source of knowledge through which broader cultural, social, and institutional structures may be examined.

Through an interdisciplinary analysis of historical scholarship, archival records, visual evidence, and critical race perspectives, this study identifies continuities between historical educational exclusion and contemporary forms of racialized educational inequality. Particular attention is given to the intersection of institutional racism, White fear, mob violence, segregation, resistance to integration, and the psychological and educational consequences experienced by African American communities. It further centers African American agency, resilience, resistance, and educational aspirations. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to provide scholars, educators, policymakers, communities, parents, and students with a deeper understanding of how racialized educational structures were constructed, maintained, and transformed, while illuminating their continuing influence on American education and the experiences of African American students. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Comments

ORCiD 0009-0008-3564-9252

Download

Share

COinS