How to Read Yesterday's Classrooms
A guide to the site, it's focus on the history of American education, and the questions that shape it
Yesterday’s Classrooms is a public history project about race, schooling, and democracy in the United States.
It’s written by me (Joseph Nichols). I’m a historian of American education. My academic research focuses on education, civil rights, and public policy—with specific emphasis on the desegregation era after Brown v. Board of Education. I write about how power, political governance, and institutional strategies shape schooling and democracy. Most of my work exists in the academy. Yesterday’s Classrooms is the place where I bring my work to a boarder public.
Why this site exists
Schools are contested terrain. Contemporary debates in education—over race, curriculum, governance, and authority—have deep historical roots. Many of the conflicts that feel so urgent today were shaped decades ago. When we miss that history, we often misunderstand “how we got here.”
Yesterday’s Classrooms is my attempt to bring this history to light.
This site isn’t about hot takes, daily commentary, or easy cookie cutter solutions. It’s a place for historically grounded essays that will (hopefully) help us see the present with a clearer set of glasses.
What you’ll find here
The writing on Yesterday’s Classrooms falls into a few overlapping categories that mirror my scholarly research:
Structures of White Resistance - Essays that examine how white opposition to school desegregation operated through law, policy, rhetoric, and everyday institutional practices. These pieces focus on the durable social and political structures that shaped and supported southern massive resistance against the federal government’s enforcement of Brown.
Institutional Responses - Essays that trace how institutions (e.g., courts, schools, legislatures) responded to desegregation mandates and racial change. Rather than assuming that institutions simply absorbed and/or enforced legal changes, these writings emphasize how political authority was interpreted and reinterpreted, and redirected and reshaped into new forms of politics.
Archival Case Studies - These are posts that are document-centered and grounded in specific pieces of historical evidence to case study specific schools, communities, or individuals. They draw directly from archival sources—highlighting them and uncovering how I’m making sense of the crafting of history.
Broader Political Contexts - Essays that situate education within the wider political, economic, and ideological contexts of 20th Century America. These pieces provide essential background for understanding why schools became such a central area of conflict.
These categories are where my thinking and writing are currently situated. So, they might shift and sharpen over time.
You don’t need any prior knowledge to read these posts. The whole point of Yesterday’s Classrooms is to provide an entry-level primer for the history of race, schooling, and American democracy.
How this site connects to my academic work
My scholarly research examines how Americans responded to school desegregation in the aftermath of the Brown decision. I’m especially interested in institutional strategies like privatization, political realignment, and the restructuring of public authority.
I publish most of my research in academic journals—which, of course, have pretty limited audiences. On Yesterday’s Classrooms, I try to bring my scholarship out into world beyond the academy’s walls.
Yesterday’s Classrooms is not separate from my academic work. It’s a companion to it.
How to read Yesterday’s Classrooms
If you’re new here, I’ve got a couple of bullet points with some suggestions on how to make sense of what’s on the site:
If you want an overview, check out one of the guides in the Start Here section. These posts are designed as on-ramps. They’re not exhaustive lists but they’ll get you going.
If you just want to make sense of the history of American education, look for essays that trace the longer political and institutional struggles that shape contemporary issues with schools and education.
If you’re a teacher or a student, visit the archive-based posts that pull back the curtain on how historical arguments are built from primary source documentation.
These are just some starting places but, as they say, the world is your oyster.
What this site is and isn't
Yesterday’s Classrooms is a historically grounded, evidence-forward site of essays for curious and thoughtful readers of history. It’s committed to clarity without oversimplification (or easy answers). It’s a site that’s comfortable with the gray space.
Yesterday’s Classrooms is not a personal blog, a newsletter chasing hits or shares, a substitute for academic scholarship, or an attempt to settle contemporary debates (or a commentary site on those debates, for that matter).
I’m not a serial poster. New essays will appear when they appear. That’s intentional. I will write when there’s something work explaining.
My goal is modest: to help readers understand how the past continues to structure the present.
A note on images and sources
You’ll notice that many posts are text-first (or text exclusive). I can’t help it. I’m a writer not a graphic designer. Images appear when they add historical or argumentative value.
You’ll also notice each post has a reference list at the bottom. Sources matter.
To start reading
All that’s left to do is to go forth and click through the pages.
If you want to start with one of the guides, make your way to the Start Here page.
If you want to jump right into reading and get the triple caff latte introduction, I’d recommend starting with two essays that really capture the spirit of the site:
Closing Black Schools to Achieve Integration on how desegregation often unfolded in ways that undermined Black communities.
“Everybody Knows the Reason. I Don’t Have to Tell You.” An essay on how segregation academies spread across the American South without their supporters needing to say what they were about.
These pieces showcase what much of this site tries to make clear: how power, resistance, and institutional choices shaped schooling in ways that continue to matter.
Happy reading. More to come soon.