Following Black gains made during Reconstruction (1865-1877) in the aftermath of the Civil War, local and state governments across the South passed a range of laws designed to thwart Black progress and restrict African Americans from participation in political, economic and civic life. These discriminatory legal and social practices, known collectively as Jim Crow, would be officially legitimized by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1896 ruling on Plessy v. Ferguson. The Court’s decision, which provided for segregated facilities for Blacks and whites, constitutionally reinforced long-standing injustices against Black Americans. Black schools in the rural South were overcrowded and underfinanced, lacking proper sanitation and heating as well as basic furnishings and school supplies. Teachers were poorly trained and underpaid. “Separate but equal” funding of Black education in the South would continue through much of the 20th century.  

Faced with these injustices, Black Americans in the South would mobilize a range of sweeping projects aimed at improving the quality of education in their communities at every level. Higher education was a key area. African Americans could seek higher education and professional training in the South only at Black schools, including those recognized today by the U.S. Department of Education as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). During segregation, while some Black colleges offered advanced degrees, places for students were limited. Most lacked the funding, courses and range of degree programs available at state-supported white schools.  

Convinced of the critical importance of expanding access to education, African Americans pushed back against the status quo. The legal branch of the NAACP, known as the Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), increased its efforts at forcing states to provide greater equity between Black and white schools. Southern governments remained committed to segregation, but in response to growing pressure from the courts, they began to make concessions. Since creating separate Black graduate and professional schools was expensive, Southern governments provided out-of-state tuition vouchers, which historian Crystal R. Sanders coins as “segregation scholarships,” to Black students who wished to pursue a graduate education.

Thus, a unique kind of Great Migration was born – representing Black Southerners subverting the rules of segregation and eventually helping to overturn them. Many Black Southerners were teachers – largely women – who brought the benefits of their Northern education back home to their communities in the South, passing their advanced learning on to their students while also helping to train fellow teachers. With the help of state tuition vouchers, these students paid their way through graduate school by finding jobs in the North – or via government programs like the GI Bill. Black Americans who traveled North for higher education did so to empower themselves and others. 

The five-part series "Segregation Scholarships” is a production of B Squared Communications in association with The WNET Group's Chasing the Dream initiative.

Watch the series here:    • Segregation Scholarships  
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