This work is a political investigation into the historical and ideological foundations of black education. It situates black education within the context of America's rise to corporate-industrial power in the latter half of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century.

A historical investigation into the political and ideological foundations of the "miseducation of the Negro" in America, this timely and provocative volume explores the men and ideas that helped shape educational and societal apartheid from the Civil War to the new millennium. It is a study of how big corporate power uses private wealth to legislate, shape unequal race relations, broker ideas, and define "acceptable" social change. Drawing on little-known biographies of White power brokers who shaped Black education, William Watkins explains the structuring of segregated education that has plagued the United States for much of the 20th century. With broad and interdisciplinary appeal, this book is written in a language accessible to lay people and scholars alike.