Description: "Tikia Hamilton excavates the history of educational activism in early-twentieth-century Washington, DC, revealing complex dynamics that provide a counterpoint and backdrop to Brown v. Board of Education. Some Black parents, teachers, and activists believed agitating for governments to live up to the Jim Crow doctrine of "separate but equal" by providing more resources to Black schools would result in better outcomes than integrated schools would. And for a time, this seemed true in Washington, where the process also fostered a significant Black presence in public life. Yet as Hamilton shows, a sea change in activism led to the embrace of integration and important steps in the fight for Brown"--
Brief description: Tikia K. Hamilton is assistant professor of history at Loyola University Chicago.
Review Quotes: "Hamilton's work is an act of remembrance and resistance--a testament to love as method, to scholarship as devotion, and to the enduring power of Black educators who dared to believe in nothing less than equality. I know the labor of love this book represents. Nothing Less Than Equality is the culmination of years of refining, shaping, sharing, and loving a story into being--a story rooted in recognition and gratitude for those whose courage built the foundation of Black educational excellence. As Hamilton reminds us, the fight for educational equality demands approaches that are as radical and multilayered as those who came before us. This book teaches, inspires, and insists that the past has something vital to teach us still: that where injustice exists, citizens must demand what is theirs by right of birth as human beings."--Noliwe Rooks, Brown University