‘In the Face of Inequality’

Historically black colleges — public and private — were created amid an era of overt discrimination and hostility to their mission. A new book traces how they responded to those challenges, typically without the financing enjoyed by other institutions, as well as to challenges that followed the theoretical end of Jim Crow. In the Face of Inequality: How Black Colleges Adapt (State University of New York Press) is by Melissa E. Wooten, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She responded via email to questions about the book.