Charles H. Thompson

During a period when African-American education was at the epicenter of the civil rights movement, Thompson's Journal documented the rapid growth of educational discrimination in the South despite significant increases in public school funding, providing irrefutable evidence that racially segregated public education was inherently discriminatory, hence, unconstitutional. Between 1932 and 1954, Thompson's editorials provided a nuanced, insider's account of one of the most successful policy research ventures in American history: the movement to overturn racial segregation as public policy, chronicling the rise during the Depression, World War II and the postwar period of a policy community committed to expanding human rights nationally and internationally. A brilliant essayist, Thompson sought to close the gap between America's democratic precepts and its undemocratic practices by molding public opinion favorable to a significant expansion of civil rights among scholars, policymakers and the public. An expert witness in several landmark higher education cases argued before the U. S. Supreme Court including Sipuel (1948), Sweatt (1950) and McLaurin (1950), Thompson's editorials provided an informed, eyewitness account of African-American teachers' pivotal role in the NAACP litigation campaign culminating in the landmark Brown et al v. Board of Education of Topeka et al (1954) desegregation ruling. This is the first, full-length study of Charles H. Thompson's contributions to American education and the civil rights movement.

Louis Ray is associate professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Peter Sammartino School of Education.

DEDICATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PROLOGUE CHAPTER 1: CHARLES HENRY THOMPSON, THE EARLY YEARS, 1895-1925 CHAPTER 2: HOWARD UNIVERSITY AND POLICY RESEARCH CHAPTER 3: THE MENTORSHIP OF DWIGHT O. W. HOLMES CHAPTER 4: SACRIFICES AND ASPIRATIONS CHAPTER 5: FOUNDING THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO EDUCATION CHAPTER 6: BATTLING DRAGONS, OLD AND NEW CHAPTER 7: A BASELINE FOR MEASURING PROGRESS CHAPTER 8: FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION CHAPTER 9: THE CASE FOR LITIGATION CHAPTER 10: TEACHERS' SALARY DISCRIMINATION CHAPTER 11: HIGHER EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP, 1936-1940 CHAPTER 12: WINNING THE PEACE CHAPTER 13: INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS, 1942 CHAPTER 14: A POLICY WINDOW OPENS CHAPTER 15: SWEATT v. PAINTER, 1945-1950 CHAPTER 16: THE JNE NATIONAL CONFERENCE, 1952 CHAPTER 17: THE BROWN DECISION, 1952-1954 CHAPTER 18: "KEEP SAWING WOOD" ENDNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY