In this paper the author argues that during the Civil Rights era, during that time of great concern regarding Black American voting and citizenship rights, ideas about rearing young Black children in the United States were explicitly introduced to guide parent education programs. Early emphases on deficits linked to educability, shifted to themes associated with parental empowerment, ecological and cultural sensitivity, social supports for family strengths, and most recently, parental involvement and empowerment, particularly vis-à-vis urban school reform. The themes, also inevitably political in nature, provide background to parent education research focusing on Black children. Given political and social conditions in Black communities, expert opinion on parental behavior and "parents as teachers" of children competes strongly with the conviction that outsiders have little understanding of the realities confronted by Black families. The author concludes by discussing what she believes the continuing challenge is to educability, voting and citizenship that parents of Black children must confront in the near future, notably, parental empowerment.