African American Art Education

Improved Essays
Art education was changing in America, “In the 1930’s, American public school art responded to various issues of labor selection, urbanization, and socialization. By the 1940’s and 1950’s, a new tension in the national political and economic condition resulted…” (Freedman, 1989, p.17). At the end of World War I, art educators looked to curriculum to address the needs of citizenship and social relationships. Kerry Freedman (1989) concludes art education had two layers, first, a curriculum that focuses on social responsibilities; second, redefine citizenship based on the child’s individual beliefs and attitudes (p. 17). While the agenda of art education supported American democracy, it did not address the segregation and training of African …show more content…
Joyner looked beyond just white schools and helped to create a Negro Art Section to work with VEA and lay the groundwork for the Negro Art Service in the Department of Education (Quick, 1986; Nichols, 1979: Quick and Burton, 2015). Art educators Pearl Quick and David Burton (2015) reveal the position of an African American assistant supervisor was created for the purpose of bringing equal opportunity to schools in Virginia. As a result, the Virginia Department of Education approved Joyner in hiring Mary Godfrey on June 10, 1947 as a way to afford all the schools in Virginia equal opportunity (Nichols, 1979; Quick and Burton, 2015). Godfrey’s job was to supervise the black schools in the state and to promote art education, (Quick, 1986; Hollingsworth, 1988). Ironically, her presence was to help organize the black section of the VEA. The VEA of mainly white educators are credited for creating a position for an African American supervisor in Virginia. However, there is no mention of the Virginia Teachers Reading Circle created in 1887, comprised of Black

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