A Black Critique

Black Education: Myths and Tragedies, by Thomas Sowell. New York: David McKay. 338 pp.

This book is a highly personal critique of black education in the United States during recent years. Written by an articulate and competent black economist, it draws heavily on his limited experiences as a student in a few black schools and as a professor in one black and several white universities. In the end, Sowell’s personality (as it comes through in his pages) may make a stronger impression than the facts and arguments that he marshalls. Black Education starts with an autobiographical sketch, from its author’s humble beginnings in Gastonia, North Carolina, through graduation magna cum laude from Harva...