Southern States Spend 10x More Per Pupil on White vs. Black Students

By the 1910s, Southern states routinely spent 10 to 1 or more on white students relative to Black students per capita. South Carolina in 1915 spent $13.98 per white pupil and $1.12 per Black pupil. Black schools operated in churches without books, with teachers earning a fraction of white teacher salaries. Black school terms ran 3-4 months versus 6-7 for white schools. This deliberate underfunding engineered an educational gap.