Urban Redevelopment, School Closure, and the Abstract Space of Black Schooling in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1968-1972

Abstract

Situated within the literature on school desegregation and black suburbanization, this article uses a framework of spatial production and racial formation to understand how one all-black high school, Fairmont Heights, was produced as an educational space through policy discourses during the height of school desegregation in suburban Maryland. The article draws on faculty statements opposing school closure, federal grant applications for urban renewal funds, annual board of education reports, superintendent addresses, and school board minutes to address three questions: How did Fairmont Heights get “produced” as an unequal educational space in relation to the surrounding metropolitan area, both physically and symbolically? How did different spatial imaginaries relate to race? How did people draw on language to mobilize these imaginaries and what sort of changes were effected as a result?