Unlike the vast majority of American historian/writers who write about the US Civil War as being about the freeing of African-American slaves, Barker's article suggests to me that this horrendous war was more about freeing them from traditional slavery so that they could become low paid wage slaves in the newly burgeoning capitalist industries. Barker doesn't directly make this point, but such an inference is blatantly obvious.
Ruling class philanthropists have maintained a long history of subsuming educational needs to capitalist growth prerogatives. In his latest column, Michael Barker looks at how industrial education served as “a major force in the subjugation of black labour in the New South” in the United States.
