Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation's Capital

Finalist for the 2026 ASALH Book Award

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.