Progressive Education in the Black High School: The General Education Board's Black High School Study, 1940-1948

While my primary work at the Rockefeller Archive Center was focused on the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored American Film Center and the Film Associates' 1940 documentary, One Tenth of Our Nation, a tangential and closely-related topic of research was the General Education Board's Secondary School Study, also known as the Black High School Study. In fact, this experimental project led to the discovery of the One Tenth film since, arising from my earlier archival explorations, I learned that this first documentary on African American education was shown at various participating schools. While I spent most of my time examining American Film Center and Film Associates materials, I continued to notice new information of this remarkable secondary school project in the field of progressive education.