[6] Anderson also argued the education style promoted by benefactors from the north and south, the Hampton-Tuskeegee model, was intended to orient black people to labor and make them in an inferior status.

[7] Anderson argues that the northern industrialists in particular wanted pliant workers and were the party primarily responsible for the non-liberal, work-oriented curriculum.

[8] Joe M. Richardson of Florida State University wrote that the author "clearly demonstrates that blacks played a larger role in their own education than generally thought".

[12] Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of Emory University stated that the book is "powerful" and a "convincing and chilling account", and that "it behooves the rest of us to take it seriously.

[15] Thomas W. Hanchett of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote that the book "will be valued by students" of the field; he argued that the author "stumbles sometimes in fitting theory to fact" in some issues.

[16] James E. Newby of Howard University praised the book's third chapter, but criticized it for not mentioning the Blair Education Bill and the Morrill Act of 1890, arguing that the author should have done so based on his previous track record.