Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital (Culture Politics & the Built Environment) - Softcover

Wiley, Amber N.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822968320 ISBN 13: 9780822968320

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2026

Synopsis

Finalist for the 2026 ASALH Book Award Finalist for the 2026 Association of American Publishers PROSE Award in the Social Sciences Access to educational resources has been a tool of liberation for Black Americans from the antebellum period to the present. With this book, Amber N. Wiley emphasizes the value of education as a means for social equality—Black Americans wanted the American Dream to apply to them, and equal opportunity for quality education was at the forefront of making that dream a reality. Model Schools in the Model City chronicles how Black Washingtonians used public education as a means of racial uplift in the face of entrenched white resistance and repeated assertions of white supremacy. For Black Washingtonians, it was the school building—a permanent structure, made of sturdy material—that was the physical realization of Black liberation, agency, and the right to exist as citizens of the United States. Furthermore, it was the school building that stood as the litmus test to whether Black Washingtonians’ citizenship was perpetually guaranteed; thus, they fought with all the tools at their disposal to maintain access to quality education in the nation’s capital. In this book, Wiley recounts the untold story of Black Washingtonians’ educational ambitions, especially as they were manifested in the schools themselves.

About this title

About the Author

Amber N. Wiley is the Wick Cary Director of the Institute for Quality Communities and an Associate Professor of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design in the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822968320
• ISBN 13: 9780822968320
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 456