A Worthy Piece of Work The Untold Story of Madeline Morgan and the Fight for Black History in Schools

The story of Madeline Morgan, the activist educator who brought Black history to one of the nation’s largest and most segregated school systems

A Worthy Piece of Work tells the story of Madeline Morgan (later Madeline Stratton Morris), a teacher and an activist in WWII-era Chicago, who fought her own battle on the home front, authoring curricula that bolstered Black claims for recognition and equal citizenship.

During the Second World War, as Black Americans both fought to save democracy abroad and demanded full citizenship at home, Morgan’s work gained national attention and widespread praise, and became a model for teachers, schools, districts, and cities across the country. Scholar Michael Hines unveils this history for the first time, providing a rich understanding of the ways in which Black educators have created counternarratives to challenge the anti-Black racism found in school textbooks and curricula.

At a moment when Black history is under attack in school districts and state legislatures across the country, A Worthy Piece of Work reminds us that struggles over history, representation, and race are far from a new phenomenon.

Michael Hines is an assistant professor of education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He earned his BA in history from Washington University in St. Louis and his MA and PhD in cultural and educational policy studies from Loyola University. Hines’s research has been published in several journals, including the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, History of Education Quarterly, and Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Hines is also an alumnus of Teach for America and Education Pioneers.

Introduction

CHAPTER 1
“Knowledge Is Power Only If It Is Put into Action”: The Making of Madeline Morgan

CHAPTER 2
“Self-Preservation Exacts a Oneness in Motive and in Deed”: Wartime Interculturalism and the Supplementary Units

CHAPTER 3
“A Worthy Piece of Work”: The Supplementary Units as Alternative Black Curriculum

CHAPTER 4
“And Quite the Pride of the Middle West”: The Supplementary Units, Influence, and Impact, 1942–1944

CHAPTER 5
“Erase the Color Line from the Blackboards of America”: The Supplementary Units in the Classroom

CHAPTER 6
“This Crucial War for Democracy”: Madeline Morgan and Intercultural Education in the Postwar World, 1945–1950

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index