Are Black Students Intellectually and Academically Inferior to White Students?
- Donald V. Watkins
- Jul 3
- 5 min read
By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on July 3, 2025
An Editorial Opinion
In 1935, the all-black Wiley College debate team defeated the reigning national debate champion, the University of Southern California. This remarkable feat is depicted in the hit movie, “The Great Debaters,” starring Denzel Washington. The movie version used Hollywood's creative license to portray the Wiley team defeating Harvard University. While the school names were diffferent for dramatic storytelling purposes, the result was the same -- Wiley College won the national debate championship!
Was the Wiley College’s debate performance a fluke? No.
Are Black students intellectually and academically inferior to White students?
I am forced to ask this question because, last month, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) openly called Black citizens in the state’s urban areas “inner city rats.” Based upon his remarks, Tuberville clearly sees Black Alabamians as intellectually and academically inferior to Whites.
In 2022, Tuberville referred to the descendants of enslaved people in America as “criminals” and, in 2023, he advocated for White Nationalists to join the military because he sees them as “Americans.” Today, Tuberville is a leading proponent for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.
The most definitive answer to my question on the intellectual acumen of Black students lies in the remarkable feat that was accomplished by students in a small all-Black public school in Parsons, Kansas in the 1940s.
During the 1946-47 and 1947-48 school years, Negro students at the Douglass Junior High School in Parsons academically outperformed their White junior high schools peers in the city on a scholastic basis. The same accomplishment occurred for the elementary school division of Douglass. At the time, Parson’s Negro population was only 12% of the city’s 15,000 population.
Douglass School’s Information Bulletin for 1941-42 lays out the educational foundation that made it possible to achieve this remarkable feat, twice:
Douglass made it the school's mission to "provide that quality of education which guarantees for its recipients a key to the 'abundant life'." In that regard, Douglass proclaimed that "the educator must be concerned with the whole child, the whole school, and the whole community.”
Douglass believed, in practice, that "only those educators who were a part of the student’s family, his school, and his community – the community in which he lives and participates – [could] best satisfy his specific needs at any educational level."
The physical plant and school equipment at Douglass was comparable with other schools in Parsons and provided the opportunity for Douglass student to produce academic "work of an identical quality."
Douglass boasted that the school's principal and faculty had "training and degrees from nine of the country’s leading teacher training institutions." Additionally, the pupil-teacher ratio was "extremely low and almost equilvant to private instruction in the fields of study."
In 1947, Douglass was the only fully accredited separate four-year junior high school in Kansas, and, in 1946, the school was home to Chapter 446 of the National Honor Society.
No student was excluded from participation in school activities because of lack of parental financial support. Thus, Douglass developed and implemented a “work study” program. The school also provided work experiences for all Negro students in Parsons who were 16 years old, via President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s National Youth Administration Program (NYA). In essence, Douglass served as an employment agency for students who wanted to work and earn money for school acitivites and family support.
Douglass had a Library of over 3,000 books, including the “largest and most comprehensive selection of books by, for, and about Negroes to be found in the city.” Douglass proudly referred to this selection of books as the “Negro Collection,” which had a “particular emphasis on the Negro and his contribution to society.” The “Negro Collection” also contained “current periodicals including both magazines and newspapers published by Negro institutions.” Because of their constant and prolonged exposure to books, magazines, and newspapers portraying Negroes in a positive light, Douglass students never felt inferior to anyone.
The school cafeteria offered balanced and nourishing meals that were supplemented by fruits and vegetables from a garden on school property that was planted, maintained, and harvested by students. The regular 5 cents lunch consisted of one meat, one vegetable, drink, salad, and dessert. Fruits and vegetables beyond what was needed for the cafeteria were sold to outside vendors to provide free lunch to students who could not afford it. No student from a needy family was ever denied lunch.
Audio visual technology and materials were thoroughly integrated and used as a teaching tools. Field trips, experiments, and modeling were used to enhance the learning experience. Students regularly visited the city’s 42 local, thriving, black-owned businesses under the theory that, “If you can see it, you can be it.”
Douglass extended its “Activity Program” to add football for boys and basketball for girls. It became a charter member of the newly organized Tri-State Music Festival and organized a championship-level school band. Nearly all Negro students in the city flocked to the Douglass to participate in its expansive “Activity Program.”
Douglass students published a student newspaper three times per year. The newspaper showcased student talent, provided information of the school's achievements, and became a valuable community resource tool. Additionally, eight of the school’s Civics Class students assisted in the survey and preparation of the April 1947 “Directory of Negro Residents and Organizations in Parsons, Kansas.”
Each student’s class schedule, planned academic program, and grades were harmonized with his/her individual guidance record to “maximize the learning process and virtually eliminate all ‘failures” on the part of the student.”
Fast-Forward to Today
Fast-forward to educators in predominantly Black public schools run by majority Black school boards today. Many of these school systems are well-funded, particularly in urban areas. However, the academic performance of many schools within these systems is sorely lacking.
All we hear from elected school board members and their appointed administrators in these school systems is an endless cycle of tired, lame, and bullshit excuses for why so many of their schools are failing their students. The formula for preparing Black students to systematically outperform their White peers, intellectually and academically, has been in existence and published since 1941.
I will not listen to these excuses for academic failure anymore. The voices of failure annoy me. We know from the Douglass School experience that Black public school students, as a whole, are capable of outperforming any group of students. But, they cannot accomplish this feat when the leadership of their school system is failing them.
In private settings, so many Black public officials have told me Black students don't want to learn anything. That's bullshit. The Douglass School model still works. It is implemented at Valiant Cross Academy in Montgomery, Alabama every day. In 2023, Valiant Cross won the Yass Prize and $1 million for educational innovation and excellence in a national competition.
Because the total community bought into the success of the Douglass School students, they became academic superstars. Because of their demonstrated brainpower in academic competition, these students enjoyed the celebrity status in Parsons in the 1940s that Black high school athletes enjoy today.
Mrs. Victory Nestfield-Wright was a well-respected local Black business woman in Parsons who was also a huge booster of the Douglass School. She made sure that Douglass had all of the resources it needed to outperform its white peer institutions.
The racist attitude exhibited by the Tommy Tubervilles of the world is no excuse for Black public school officials to normalize the subpar performance of students within majority Black school districts. Whenever those individuals who are charged with educating our children concern themselves with developing the “whole child” within the “whole school” and with the support of the “whole community,” we can produce K-12 students with the intellectual ability and academic skills needed to outperform any group of students on a scholastic achievement basis. Anything short of implementing and adhering to this well-known standard of educational excellence is bullshit.
The Douglass School model for educational excellence showed my parents what was possible for their own six children. The model worked six times out of six within our home.