"Educating the Masses is a history of the struggle of black public-school administrators in Arkansas to provide a quality education for black youth in the years between Reconstruction and the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education and thereafter. This is the story of men and women who fought for resources to provide their teachers with adequate salaries, educational facilities and equipment, teaching materials, and curricula and to provide their students with the competitive skills needed for success in America.

"Utilizing information from surveys conducted by the Retired Educators of Little Rock and Other Public Schools, who developed the idea for this book, as well as examining both private and public documents and secondary sources, C. Calvin Smith and contributing editor, Linda Walls Joshua, have compiled an unprecedented historical collection that pinpoints the key players, their struggles, and their victories in the ongoing movement to improve black education in Arkansas."--Jacket.