School Funding Disparities: Southern States Spend 10x More on White Students

Throughout the South in the 1930s, per-pupil spending on white students was 10–20 times higher than on Black students. In Mississippi in 1930, the state spent $31.33 per white pupil vs. $5.45 per Black pupil. Alabama spent $37 per white pupil vs. $7 per Black pupil. Black schools operated in churches, cabins, and tents while white students had brick schoolhouses. Black teachers were paid one-third to one-half the salaries of white teachers. The Julius Rosenwald Fund built over 5,000 rural Black schools between 1912 and 1932 to compensate for state refusal to fund Black education.