Jim Crow South Education

WHITE SOCIALIZATION

The objective of white Southern parent’s instruction of their children was to have the new Jim Crow South replicate the same social order as slavery. This meant emphasizing the power of white skin and the importance of keeping whiteness separate from blackness (DuRocher, 14). White parents instilled a fear of ‘the slave becoming the master,’ as the power of whites came directly from African American’s lack of power. Thus, it was important for white parents to regulate social spaces as their children got older in order to avoid interactions between them and African Americans. White children were barred by their parents from eating with blacks, as such interactions represented a disruption of social order. Such sharing of

Lessons from Home: The Education of a White Child in the Jim Crow South,” Mary Dilg writes about her own experience as a young white girl growing up in an isolated, rural area of the Jim Crow South. Dilg describes the ways in which areas of the South worked to isolate themselves from conflicting views, thus maintaining racist ideologies and keeping segregation strong. She notes the manners and concepts that white children were taught at school in relation to race, and argues that such rules served to silence white children, keeping them from questioning the system or fully understanding the other side. Dilg admits that if she had not later moved north and pursued a better, less twisted education, these ideologies would still hold her. She emphasizes the power of schooling, and how teaching can be used and abused. It was very difficult for white Southerners to unlearn what they had been taught about racial boundaries and stereotypes, as Southern schools forcefully instilled racist beliefs. Thus, Dilg acknowledges that combatting the white supremacist ideals she learned as a child must be a conscious choice to this day, as such rules and beliefs cannot simply be erased. Unfortunately, many white Southerners did not move out of their isolated, racist arenas, or even think to question in the first place, leaving the South a racially charged landmine set to blow at any risk of power