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WORK TITLE: A Chance for Change
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.crystalrsanders.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://history.psu.edu/directory/crystal-r.-sanders * http://history.psu.edu/directory/crystal-r.-sanders/MyCV * https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469627809/a-chance-for-change/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Duke University, B.A., 2005; Northwestern University, M.A., 2006, Ph.D., 2011.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, postdoctoral research fellow, 2011-12, associate professor, 2012—.
MEMBER:Southern Historical Association, Southern Association for Women Historians, Organization of American Historians, History of Education Society, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Association of Black Women Historians, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, American Historical Association.
AWARDS:William J. Griffith University Service Award, Duke University, 2005; Elizabeth Cannon Outstanding Female Historian Award, Duke University, 2005; Graduate Student Travel Award, Labor and Working-Class History Association, 2007; Drusilla Dungee Houston Prize, Association of Black Women Historians, 2007; Huggins-Quarles Award, Organization of American Historians, 2008; Claude A. Eggertsen Dissertation Prize, History of Education Society, 2012; C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association, 2012; American Academy of Arts and Sciences visiting scholar, 2013-2014; New Scholars Book Award, American Educational Research Association, 2017.
Duke University Mellon Mays fellow, 2003-2005; Andrew W. Mellon graduate fellow, 2005; Spencer Foundation fellow, 2009-2010; Ford Foundation Diversity fellow, 2009-2010; Pennsylvania State University postdoctoral research fellow, 2011-2012; Archie K. Davis fellow, 2015; Spencer Foundation fellow, 2017-2018; recipient of grants the from Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, 2007, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, 2008.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including African American National Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford University Press, 2008, and Liberating Minds…Liberating Society: Black Women in the Development of American Culture and Society, edited by Lopez D. Matthews Jr. and Kenvi C. Phillips, CreateSpace, 2014.
Also contributor to periodicals, including History of Education Quarterly, Journal of African American History, Journal of Mississippi History, Journal of Southern History, News and Observer, North Carolina Historical Review, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, and Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International.
SIDELIGHTS
Crystal R. Sanders is an associate professor of history and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University. She holds a baccalaureate degree from Duke University and earned her master’s and postdoctoral degrees at Northwestern University. Sanders’s research predominantly focuses on the American South and the African American diaspora. She has published articles in various historical periodicals, including the Journal of Mississippi History, the Journal of Southern History, and the History of Education Quarterly. Her work has also garnered several accolades, including the honorary title of Alumnae Pioneer awarded by Duke University.
A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle is Sanders’s first published book. It chronicles the efforts of group of African-American women to build a better future for the youth in their communities in the 1960s—specifically in the form of a preschool program in the state of Mississippi. The program was officially known as the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM). The program was established under the auspices of the federal Head Start program created by President Lyndon Johnson. According to Sanders’s research, Mississippi’s state government brought about the CDGM’s downfall by the end of the decade.
Much of Sanders’s research comes from interviews with women who integrally involved in running the CDGM, and parts of these interviews are featured in A Chance for Change. By sharing the perspectives of these women, Sanders is able to shed more light on the program and its historical importance, as well as dash away misconceptions about the program and its effectiveness.
Sanders also addresses the significance that the CDGM held for black Mississippians, as well as the impact the program left upon communities. The program managed to give black women in Mississippi a stronger voice within state politics and an increase in career opportunities. It also provided a much better academic foundation for underprivileged young black children.
The elements of positive growth that the CDGM gave the African-American community proved to be a major cause of alarm for state politicians, many of whom still supported Jim Crow laws. In detailing the rise of the CDGM, Sanders also covers the various factors that contributed to its quick dismantling at the hands of the state government. In an issue of Choice, J.C. Agnew-Tally recommended the book “for a wide audience” and also remarked that Sanders’s interviews with former CDGM staffers give the book “unique authenticity.” A writer on the National Civil Rights Museum website called A Chance for Change an “innovative study.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 2016, J.C. Agnew-Tally, review of A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle, p. 274.
ONLINE
AAIHS, http://www.aaihs.org/ (July 18, 2016), Keisha N. Blain, “Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders.”
Crystal R. Sanders Website, http://www.crystalrsanders.com (September 14, 2017).
National Civil Rights Museum, https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/ (September 14, 2017), review of A Chance for Change.
Pennsylvania State University, http://history.psu.edu/ (September 14, 2017), faculty profile.
University of North Carolina Press, https://www.uncpress.org/ (September 14, 2017), author profile and summary of A Chance for Change.
Crystal R.Sanders108 Weaver BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802919-333-5096* crs19@psu.eduEMPLOYMENT HISTORY2012-Assistant Professor, Departments of History and African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA2011-2012Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of History and the Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University, PAEDUCATION2011Ph.D.U.S. History, NorthwesternUniversity, Evanston, ILDissertation:“To Be Free of Fear: Black Women’s Fight for Freedom Through the Child Development Group of Mississippi”*Winner of the 2012 Claude A. Eggertsen Dissertation Prize, History of Education Society*Winner of the 2012 C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association2006M.A.History, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL2005B.A.cum laude,History and Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NCPUBLICATIONS BooksA Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle(University of North CarolinaPress, 2016)Books in Progress“Deferred Dreams and Exiled Citizens: Black Graduate Education in the Age of Jim Crow” (in progress)Book Chapters“Clara Burrill Bruce: An Aristocrat in the African American Freedom Struggle,” in Liberating Minds...Liberating Society: Black Women in the Development of American Culture and Society, Lopez D. Matthews, Jr. and Kenvi C. Phillips, eds., (Lexington, KY: Association of Black Women Historians, 2014).
Sanders 2Articles“North Carolina Justice On Display: Governor Bob Scott and the 1968 Benson Affair,” Journal of Southern HistoryLXXIX (August 2013): 659-680.“Blue Water, Black Beach: The North Carolina Teachers Associationand Hammocks Beach inthe Ageof Jim Crow,” North Carolina Historical ReviewXCII (April 2015): 145-164.“More Than Cookies and Crayons: Head StartPrograms and African American Empowermentin Mississippi,1965-1968,” Journal of African American History100 (Fall 2015): 586-609.“Money Talks: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the African American Freedom Struggle in Mississippi,” History of Education Quarterly(May 2016): 361-367.“Dignity in Life and Death: Undertaker Clarie Collins Harvey and Black Women’s Entrepreneurial Activism,” (forthcoming,Journal of Mississippi History)“Pursuing the Unfinished Business of Democracy: Willa B. Player and Liberal Arts Education in the Civil Rights Era(under review at peer-reviewed journal)“Stethoscopes, Stitches, and Segregation: Black Healthcare in the Age of Jim Crow” (under review at peer-reviewed journal)Book Reviews for Register of the Kentucky Historical Society,Journal of Mississippi History,Journal of Southern History, North Carolina Historical Review, and Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black InternationalOp-Eds, Encyclopedia Entries, and Other Publications “18 Books on Black Women’s History to Read toBetter Understand ‘Lemonade,’” Forharriet.com, May 11, 2016.(more than 6,500 unique shares on Facebook)Invited Blog Post for Oxford University Press, “Wilberforce University: A Pioneering Institution in African American Education,” February 2015.Op-Ed, “South Carolina’s Brilliant Idea for Black History Month,” History News Network, February 11, 2015.Op-Ed, “Targeting Elizabeth City was UnfairGiven NC’s Historical Underfunding of HBCUs,” News and Observer, May 31, 2014.Victoria Gray Adams,” “Elizabeth Bias Cofield,” “James Hood,” “Valerie Jarrett,” “Juanita Moore,” “Susan Rice,” and “Beverly Daniel Tatum,” in African American
Sanders 3National Biography (online edition), eds. Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (New York: Oxford University Press).AWARDS, HONORS, AND DISTINCTIONS2016Named as a Duke University Alumnae Pioneer, Baldwin Scholars Program2016Participant, 2016 Mississippi Book Festival(Panel broadcast on C-SPAN 2)2015Archie K. Davis Fellowship($2,000), North Caroliniana Society2013-2014 Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Arts and Sciences($35,000)2012 C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association2012 Claude A. Eggertsen Dissertation Prize, History of Education Society2009-2010 Ford Foundation Diversity Dissertation Fellowship2009-2010Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship2008John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Research Grant2008Huggins-Quarles Award, Organization of American Historians2007Drusilla Dungee Houston Prize for Outstanding Research, Association of Black Women Historians2007Labor and Working-Class History Association Graduate Student Travel Award2007Moody Research Grant, Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation2005Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 2005 Elizabeth Cannon Outstanding Female Historian Award, Duke University2005William J. Griffith University Service Award, Duke University2004PhiAlpha Theta Honor Society2003-2005Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Duke University2001-2005Robertson Scholarship, Duke UniversityHISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY AND MEDIA APPEARANCESin “Tell Them We AreRising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities” (PBS documentary debuting October2017); C-SPAN2 Book TV; AP:The Big Story; WUNC radio “The State of Things;” BBC Radio Women’s Hour; The Global African (weekly online news outlet)SELECT INVITED TALKSApr. 2017Keynote Lecture, The Mississippi Movement Post-1964,” Mississippi State University, Starkville, MSMar. 2017Keynote Lecture, “Head Start and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement,” National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN.Jan. 2017Keynote Lecture, Colloquium in History and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University,New York, NY. Dec. 2016“Head Start’s Proud History,” National Head Start Association Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico.Nov. 2016Guest Speaker, “Conversations in Black Freedom Studies,” Schomburg Centerfor Research in Black Culture, New York, NY.Oct. 2016Guest Speaker, “Black Power’s Precursor?: Head Start in the Magnolia State,”
Sanders 4Georgetown University, Washington, DC. June 2016Guest Speaker, “The History of African American Education,” Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School Conference, Knoxville, TN.April 2016Keynote Lecture, “Cookies, Crayons, and Black Power: Head Start in the Magnolia State,” West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV. April 2016Plenary Participant, “The Movement Meets the War on Poverty: Using CDGM to Strengthen and Empower Black Mississippi Communities,” Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS. Nov. 2015PlenaryParticipant, “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) at 50: A Changing Federal Role in American Education,” History of Education Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO.Oct. 2015Keynote Lecture, “Freedom Schools, Head Start, and Moral Literacy in Civil Rights-Era Mississippi,” 20thAnnual Consortium for the Study of Leadership and Ethics in Education (CSLEE), Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Jan. 2015Keynote Speaker, “Rediscovering Lost Values,” Martin Luther King Jr.Annual Prayer Breakfast, Johnston County NAACP, Smithfield, NC. Oct. 2014Guest Speaker, “After the Marching Stopped: Head Start and the African American Freedom Struggle in Mississippi,” Emerging Scholars Conference, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA. Sept. 2014Guest Speaker, “More Than Cookies and Crayons: Head Start and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi,” War on Poverty Symposium, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.SELECT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONSApril 2017Roundtable Participant, “Routes to Power: New Views of African American Activism and Education,”Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. Dec. 2016Panel Participant, “Head Start: It’s Origins and History,” National Head Start Association Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico.Nov. 2016Paper, “A Chance for Change: Head Startand the African American Freedom Struggle,” History of Education Society Annual Meeting, Providence, RI. Sept. 2015Paper, “More than Cookies and Crayons: Head Start Programs and African American Freedom Empowerment in Mississippi,” Association for the Study of African American Life and History Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA. June 2015Paper, “Preschool Politics: Head Start and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi,” Eighth Biennial Conference of the Society for the History of Children and Youth, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. April 2015Paper, “Bennett Belles in Jail: Willa Player and Black College Student Activism,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO. Feb. 2014Paper, “The Politics of Preschool Education: Black Parents, White Supremacists, and the Child Development Group of Mississippi,” University of North Carolina Triangle African American History Colloquium, Chapel Hill, NC
Sanders 5Jan. 2013Paper, “Preschool Politics: The Child Development Group of Mississippi and Southern Opposition to the War on Poverty,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. Nov. 2012Paper, “Preschool Politics in the War on Poverty: Mississippi Black Women and the Grassroots Struggle for Freedom,” Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, Mobile, AL. TEACHINGinterests include 20thCentury United States History, African American History, Black Women’s History, History of Black EducationSERVICEMember, Southern Historical Association Membership Committee, 2017-2018Member, Organization of American Historians Lerner-Scott Dissertation Prize Committee,2016-2017Member, McCabe-Greer ProfessorshipSearch Committee, 2016-2017Member, Academic Programming Committee, 2014, 2015, 2016Association for the Study of African American Life and History Annual MeetingMember, African American Studies Head Search Committee, 2015-2016Member, African American Studies Undergraduate Studies Committee, 2015-2016Member, Schreyer Honors College Diversity Council, 2015-2016Coordinator, Richards Center Summer Undergraduate Mentoring Program, 2015-presentManuscript Reviewer, University Press of Mississippi, 2015Manuscript Reviewer for Fire!!!, 2015Faculty Advisor, Queens on the Rise (Student Organization), 2014-2015Member, Climate Committee, College of the Liberal Arts, 2014-2016Member, Selection Committee, Schreyer Honors College, 2014-2015Chair, Programming Committee, African American Studies Department, 2014-2015Member, Undergraduate Studies Committee, African American Studies Department, 2014-2015Member, Policy Committee, History Department, 2014-2015Member, Ad-Hoc Undergraduate Curricular Reform Committee, History Department, 2014-2015Facilitator, Schreyer Honors College Case Study Initiative, 2014Member, Executive Planning Committee, 2014 Pennsylvania State University Civil Rights Conference, 2013-2014Member, Duke University Annual Fund Executive Committee, 2013-presentManuscript Reviewer for History of Education Quarterly, 2013Member, Programming Committee, African American Studies Department, 2012-2013Member, Awards Committee, African American Studies Department, 2012-2013Manuscript Reviewer for Left History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate, 2012Member, Graduate Committee, Southern Associationfor Women’s Historians, 2011-2015MEMBERSHIPSAmerican Historical Association
Sanders 6Association for the Study of African American Life and HistoryAssociation of Black Women Historians(life member)Berkshire Conference of Women HistoriansHistory of Education SocietyOrganization of American Historians(OAH)Southern Association for Women HistoriansSouthern Historical AssociationDISSERTATION COMMITTEESIndira Bailey, in progressAngela Rothrock, in progressEmily Seitz, in progressTyler Sperrazza, in progressMASTERS THESES COMMITTEESCari Tindall, “‘Pricking the Conscience of the Nation’: An In-Depth Analysis of Media Coverage of the 1961 Friendship Nine Movement and Jail, No Bail Strategy,” M.A.2014.Tyler Sperrazza, “When Segregation Was All They Wanted: Black Stagehands and the Resistance to Integration in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees,” M.A. 2015.ShaVonte’ Mills, in progressUNDERGRADUATE HONORS THESESCharismaRicksy, “The Implications of the School-to-Prison Pipeline in New York City Public Schools on African American Students,” 2015.Alexandria Vogel, “Civil Rights in Song: Music as a Vehicle for Activism in the Civil Rights Movement,” 2016.
A Chance for Change
Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle
By Crystal R. Sanders
A Chance for ChangeVIEW INSIDE
266 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 23 halftones, 1 map, notes, bibl., index
PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-4696-2780-9
Published: April 2016
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-4696-2781-6
Published: February 2016
John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture
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AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
New Scholar's Book Award, Division F, American Educational Research Association
In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. Women who had previously worked as domestics and sharecroppers secured jobs through CDGM as teachers and support staff and earned higher wages. The availability of jobs independent of the local white power structure afforded these women the freedom to vote in elections and petition officials without fear of reprisal. But CDGM’s success antagonized segregationists at both the local and state levels who eventually defunded it.
Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders’s book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state’s closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.
About the Author
Crystal R. Sanders is assistant professor of history and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
For more information about Crystal R. Sanders, visit the Author Page.
Crystal R. Sanders
Crystal R. Sanders
Associate Professor of History and African American Studies
311 Weaver Building
University Park , PA 16802
Email: crs19@psu.edu
Office Phone: (814) 863-7303
Curriculum Vitae
Download CV
Websites:
http://www.crystalrsanders.com/
Education:
PhD, Northwestern University, 2011
MA, Northwestern University, 2006
BA, Duke University, 2005
Biography:
I am a historian of the modern United States with research interests in African American History, Southern History, and the History of Black Education. My scholarly work joins a growing body of literature that moves beyond “the two-dimensional story of oppression and submission” during the Jim Crow era of segregation and black disfranchisement to explore African Americans’ everyday acts of resistance and resiliency throughout the twentieth century in efforts to secure the rights and privileges of American citizenship. The University of North Carolina Press published my first book, A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle, in 2016 as part of its John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. The book considers how the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), a federal Head Start program for low-income preschoolers, produced a political battle between poor black mothers and grandmothers and white southern congressmen. Between 1965 and 1968, Mississippi's black working-class participants collaborated with the federal government to seek bottom-up change in the most repressive state in the country. They moved beyond teaching shapes and colors to challenge the state's closed political system and white supremacist ideology.
Recent Publications:
A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).
“More Than Cookies and Crayons: Head Start Programs and African American Empowerment in Mississippi, 1965-1968,” Journal of African American History 100 (Fall 2015): 586-609.
“Blue Water, Black Beach: The North Carolina Teachers Association and Hammocks Beach in the Age of Jim Crow,” North Carolina Historical Review XCII (April 2015): 145-164.
“North Carolina Justice On Display: Governor Bob Scott and the 1968 Benson Affair,” Journal of Southern History LXXIX (August 2013): 659-680.
Awards and Service:
2017 New Scholars Book Award, American Educational Research Association, Division F
2017-2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Fellowship
2015-2016 Archie K. Davis Fellowship, North Caroliniana Society
2013-2014 Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2013-2014 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined)
2012 C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association
2012 Claude A. Eggertsen Dissertation Prize, History of Education Society
Recent Courses:
HIST 021 - American Civilization Since 1877
History 152 - African American History
History 302W
History 465 - The Post-World War II Civil Rights Movement
Research Interests:
20th Century US History, African American History, History of Black Education
Research Interests:
Twentieth-Century US:
Crystal R. Sanders
Crystal 20170606.jpg
Crystal R. Sanders is a historian of the United States in the twentieth century. Her research and teaching interests include African American History, Black Women's History, and the History of Black Education. She received her PhD in History from Northwestern University and received her BA in History and Public Policy from Duke University.
Sanders is the author of A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2016 as part of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. Her work can also be found in the Journal of Southern History, the North Carolina Historical Review, and the Journal of African American History. She is currently writing a book on black southerners' efforts to secure graduate education during the age of Jim Crow.
Awards
*2016-2017 NEW SCHOLAR'S BOOK AWARD, AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION, DIVISION F
*2015-2016 ARCHIE K. DAVIS FELLOWSHIP, NORTH CAROLINIANA SOCIETY
*2013-2014 VISITING SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
*2013-2014 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF EDUCATION/SPENCER FOUNDATION POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP (DECLINED)
*2012 C. VANN WOODWARD DISSERTATION PRIZE, SOUTHERN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
*2012 CLAUDE A. EGGERTSEN DISSERTATION PRIZE, HISTORY OF EDUCATION SOCIETY
*2009-2010 FORD FOUNDATION DIVERSITY DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP
*2009-2010 SPENCER FOUNDATION DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP
*MELLON MAYS UNIVERSITY FELLOWS DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP, WOODROW WILSON NATIONAL FELLOWSHIP FOUNDATION, 2009 (DECLINED)
*JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY RESEARCH GRANT, 2008
*HUGGINS-QUARLES AWARD, ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS, 2008
*DRUSILLA DUNGEE HOUSTON PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING RESEARCH, ASSOCIATION OF BLACK WOMEN HISTORIANS, 2007
Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders
By Keisha N. Blain July 18, 2016 2
sandersThis month, I interviewed Crystal R. Sanders about her new book, A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2016). Dr. Sanders is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She was born, raised, and educated in North Carolina where she remained until graduate school. She earned her B.A. degree in History and Public Policy at Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History at Northwestern University. Her research and teaching interests include the history of black education, black women’s history, southern history, and black freedom studies. Her work can be found in the Journal of Southern History, the North Carolina Historical Review, the Journal of African American History, and the History of Education Quarterly. She has received numerous awards and honors including the C. Vann Woodward Prize from the Southern Historical Association, the Huggins-Quarles Award from the Organization of American Historians, a Ford Dissertation Fellowship, a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, and a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is working on a new book project that explores black southerners’ efforts to secure graduate education during the Age of Jim Crow.
***
Keisha N. Blain: How did you come to this topic? What are the factors and/or motivations that led you to write a book on Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle?
Crystal R. Sanders: I have had an interest in the history of black education since I was a child. My young mind often thought about the discrepancies between what my parents and grandparents told me about their experiences in black schools during the era of legal segregation and what I was told about black schools as a student in elementary and middle school classrooms. I wrote an undergraduate honors thesis in an attempt to push back against the dominant narrative that black schools pre-Brown were substandard, underfunded institutions. To the contrary, I found that many of these schools functioned as community sources of pride that nurtured black students and helped them to reach their highest potential. I learned that black parents and grandparents “double-taxed” themselves to ensure that black students had what they needed to be successful.
Writing an alternative narrative about black elementary and secondary education awakened a scholarly passion for black education within me. I then went on to graduate school and wrote my master’s thesis about a protest that Howard University students led in 1934 to challenge segregation in the House of Representatives dining hall. While searching for speeches in the Congressional Record related to the Howard protest, I stumbled upon a 1966 speech given by United States Senator John C. Stennis (D-MS). Senator Stennis took to the Senate floor to oppose the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), a statewide Head Start program that he maintained was a front for communism and black militancy. His sensational language piqued my curiosity so I began looking for more information about CDGM. I asked myself “What could be so radical and subversive about a program for preschoolers?”
The more digging I did on CDGM’s program, the more obvious it became to me that black education at all levels—including early childhood education—is political and contested. I was struck by how black women throughout the Magnolia State mobilized to bring preschool programs to their children in the same ways that black men and women had nickeled and dimed elementary and secondary schools into existence decades earlier. Also of interest was the fact that many of the individuals connected to CDGM had played integral roles in the state’s freedom struggle. Head Start simply became their next battleground in a much longer war waged for full freedom.
sanders_chance_PBBlain: Tell us more about the inspiration for your book title, A Chance for Change. Where does the title come from and how does it reflect the major argument and themes of the book?
Sanders: I wish that I could say that the book’s title came to me in a moment of creative brilliance, but that is not true. As CDGM experienced refunding delays because of segregationists’ opposition to the program, program staff and parents made a video to be used for fundraising purposes. The video, which explored all of the benefits that CDGM provided to working-class black children and their families, was titled A Chance for Change.
The title is most appropriate for my book because Head Start offered both young and old black Mississippians a chance to change their educational, political, physical, and financial destinies. The early childhood education program provided black children with access to professional healthcare, nutritious meals, and an education that celebrated rather than condemned their blackness. The program afforded working-class black Mississippians well-paying jobs outside of the local white power structure, the chance to complete the educations that had been denied them, and the opportunity to control something other than their homes and churches. CDGM truly was a chance for change.
CDGM students at mealtime (Source: Presbyterian Historical Society)
Blain: Your book offers a new and original perspective on the Head Start Program, providing a bottom-up view of the War on Poverty and centering the ideas and activities of ordinary men and women in Mississippi during the 1960s. Tell us more about how working-class black Mississippians envisioned Head Start as both a means to bolster their political standing and improve their socioeconomic status.
Sanders: The book introduces readers to many unheralded civil rights activists in the state of Mississippi. Many of these activists were women and I tried to convey their spunk, bravery, and commitment with my prose. When told about the availability of Head Start funds in 1965, Mrs. Lavaree Jones, a black woman from the Mississippi Delta, exclaimed that the program was “the answer to a prayer.” All too often, scholars of the movement do not ask what happened to local people in Mississippi after Freedom Summer…after the media left the state and northern white volunteers returned to their homes. Black Mississippians continued to face white lawlessness and white recalcitrance toward civil rights. Many, like Mrs. Jones, had lost their jobs because of their activism. Their kids still attended segregated schools despite the fact that the United States Supreme Court had ordered otherwise in 1954.
Working-class black Mississippians understood that civil rights legislation alone could not improve their plight. Many, then, purposed to exploit Head Start, a community action program that mandated their meaningful participation, to secure quality education for their children and professional employment opportunities for themselves. Head Start in its initial years did not require teachers to have formal credentials. This mean that men and women who had worked as cotton choppers on white-owned land or who had labored as domestics cleaning white homes now had the opportunity to work for a Head Start program. Head Start employment distanced these local people from the oversight of local whites who often used economic reprisals to curtail activism. Thus, it is no coincidence that many of the first black Mississippians to enroll their children in previously all-white schools in the fall of 1965 were CDGM employees. The preschool program was indeed an answer to prayer.
Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 6.04.08_PM
CDGM staff at the Porterville Head Start Center in Kemper County, MS (Source: Presbyterian Historical Society)
Blain: In Chapter 2, “A Revolution in Expectations,” you argue that the Child Development Group—the Head Start Program that gave impoverished black children greater access to early childhood education—“built upon and extended earlier civil rights work in Mississippi” (p. 71). Can you elaborate on this point?
Sanders: The fight over Head Start in Mississippi was part and parcel of a much longer struggle for African Americans’ full freedom. Dating back to the Reconstruction era, white officials in the state underfunded black education to limit black Mississippians’ employment options later in life. James Vardaman, who served in the U.S. Senate and as Mississippi’s governor, once said that educating African Americans “is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook.” Moreover, the state’s white power structure controlled, limited, and filtered what black students learned. Black teachers who mentioned black history or discussed Emmett Till in the classroom faced termination. African American parents fought back but remained powerless to bring about significant changes since disfranchisement devices such as literacy tests prevented them from voting.
Because of the dismal black educational status quo in Mississippi, black parents rallied around Head Start. As a federal program, local white officials could not control Head Start’s funding and could not dictate what was taught in Head Start centers. CDGM offered black parents the opportunity to provide their children with an education that celebrated blackness and that was devoid of inferior resources. In doing so, CDGM bore witness to the parents who had advocated for better funding for black education since the late nineteenth century. The program also provided an opportunity for working-class black Mississippians to participate in community governance since electoral politics continued to be closed to many. Ordinary black men and women sat on Head Start committees that functioned as pseudo-school boards. They made decisions about everything from where a CDGM center was located to which vendors supplied food and toys.
Blain: One of the significant aspects of your book is its focus on the experiences of black women in Mississippi during the modern Civil Rights Movement. Tell us more about how Head Start fundamentally altered black women’s political and economic prospects during this period.
Sanders: As Charles Payne’s seminal work on the Mississippi Freedom Struggle showed us, black women “canvassed more than men, showed up more frequently at mass meetings, and more frequently attempted to register to vote.” Remember, it was Fannie Lou Hamer who went to the courthouse to vote in 1962—not her husband Pap Hamer. In a state like Mississippi that worked to preserve white supremacy by any means necessary, there were consequences to challenging the racial status quo. Black women were central actors in the fight to dismantle white supremacy and they faced white reprisals because of their political work.
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CDGM teacher Doris Derby teaches a Head Start child about West African culture. (Maria Varela, photographer/Doris Derby Collection, Emory University)
Black women outnumbered black men in CDGM. This was so for a variety of reasons including the fact that women are the normative caretakers for children and because women more readily saw Head Start as a continuation of their earlier civil rights work. In the book, I show that CDGM jobs were critical in restoring the economic livelihoods of black women who had lost their jobs because of their activism or because of their proximity to the movement. For example, Roxie Meredith lost her job as a school cafeteria worker in 1962 after her son, James, desegregated the University of Mississippi. Roxie Meredith did not have steady employment again until she secured a CDGM job.
For certain, CDGM did much more than employ black women. The program provided these women with professional employment. CDGM supposed that former sharecroppers and domestics had the ability to learn on-the-job and thus gave them the chance to gain valuable work experience in office and educational settings despite lacking formal credentials. Additionally, Head Start paid for many of these women to return to school and complete their educations.
Blain: Your book significantly enriches our understanding of black education in the United States. Where do you think the field is headed? What areas would you like to see further explored? How does your next book project address some of these concerns?
Sanders: Black education in the United States is such a rich subfield and yet, there is much work left to be done. I would love to see studies about the experiences of African students who enrolled at black colleges in the 1920s and 1930s (e.g. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah). I would also like to see more work on the lived experiences of African American college students at historically black and predominately white institutions throughout the twentieth century. My next book project takes up the latter task. I am exploring black southerners’ efforts to secure graduate education during the age of Jim Crow. For the first third of the twentieth century, southern state legislatures did not provide any graduate education for African Americans. Rather than create graduate and professional programs at black colleges or desegregate white colleges, southern state legislatures appropriated tax dollars to send black citizens out-of-state for graduate training. This practice continued even after the United States Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in Missouri ex rel. Gaines V. Canada (1938). For example, North Carolina began an out-of-state grant program for black students in 1939. Mississippi implemented its own “Jim Crow scholarship program” in 1948. I aim to shed new light on the high financial costs of segregation and to expose the forgotten sacrifices and struggles of thousands of African Americans who left their families and communities in search of educational opportunity.
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Keisha N. Blain
Keisha N. Blain is the Senior Editor of Black Perspectives. She is a historian of the 20th century United States with broad interdisciplinary interests and specializations in African American History, the modern African Diaspora, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Her first book, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press), will be published in Spring 2018. Follow her on Twitter @KeishaBlain.
Sanders, Crystal R.: A chance for change: Head Start and Mississippi's black freedom struggle
J.C. Agnew-Tally
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 54.2 (Oct. 2016): p274.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
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Sanders, Crystal R. A chance for change: Head Start and Mississippi's black freedom struggle. North Carolina, 2016. 250p bibl index afp ISBN 9781469627809 pbk, $27.95; ISBN 9781469627816 ebook, $26.99
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Historian Sanders (Penn State) recounts the brief history of the Head Start program, the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), created in 1965 and defunded in December 1967. Women who worked as domestics and sharecroppers were given the opportunity to work as teachers and support staff and, as a result, earned higher wages. In addition, they interacted with government officials as part of their work with Head Start. Although the program was successful, it was defunded after three years. The author challenges the idea that Head Start was a misguided social experiment. She describes the struggle of black Mississippians' quest for quality education, which led to challenging the states culture and ideology. Stories of the many women who staffed the CDGM give this book a unique authenticity. The book has the potential to greatly enhance the education and development of teacher educators, teachers, and students in the fields of child development and early childhood education. For a wide audience. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.--J. C. Agnew-Tally, Missouri State University
Agnew-Tally, J.C.
A CHANCE FOR CHANGE:
HEAD START AND MISSISSIPPI'S BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLE
BY CRYSTAL R. SANDERS
In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. Women who had previously worked as domestics and sharecroppers secured jobs through CDGM as teachers and support staff and earned higher wages. The availability of jobs independent of the local white power structure afforded these women the freedom to vote in elections and petition officials without fear of reprisal. But CDGM's success antagonized segregationists at both the local and state levels who eventually defunded it.
Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders's book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state's closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.
A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2016 is part of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.
Crystal Sanders is assistant professor of history and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Crystal R. Sanders is a historian of the United States in the twentieth century. Her research and teaching interests include African American History, Black Women's History, and the History of Black Education. She received her PhD in History from Northwestern University and received her BA in History and Public Policy from Duke University.
Her work can also be found in the Journal of Southern History, the North Carolina Historical Review, and the Journal of African American History. She is currently writing a book on black southerners' efforts to secure graduate education during the age of Jim Crow.
“An extraordinary work, rich and revealing, A Chance for Change challenges common assumptions about what the movement was. I doubt any work on the struggle captures the process of individual transformation as vividly as this one does. At the same time, knowing that CDGM lost support because it was too successful changes our conceptions of what the War on Poverty might have been." —Charles M. Payne, author of I've Got the Light of Freedom