5 Things About... Black Education During Reconstruction (Patreon)

When most of us learn about the fight to desegregate schools during the mid-twentieth century, we often don't get much history about how black people were educated in the immediate years after slavery.

To provide extra context for this post, check out this short article on Intelexual Media about learning to read and write as a slave

1) Ex-Slaves were desperate for literacy...

And they weren't going to wait around for white folks to give it to them. The concept of universally educating children was not a common belief by white southerners. Politics throughout the antebellum south were ran by wealthy white planters, and the last thing they desired was education for poor white children, let alone black ones. This didn't change after emancipation. But when black people were freed from slavery, they were eager to read and write. In 1866 the superintendent for the Freedman's Bureau schools said: "Throughout the entire south, an effort is being made by the colored people to educate themselves." 

2) An effort that had been evolving since as early as 1861... four years before emancipation and five years before the Freedman's Bureau. 

These humble schools existed in places like Savannah and New Orleans. They were often helped financially by white missionary societies, but black parents didn't want much input. Said a white missionary from New England on black southerners, "They have a natural praiseworthy pride in keeping their educational institutions in their own hands. There is jealousy of the superintendence of the white man in this matter. What they desire is assistance without control." Most of these schools were eventually taken over by the Freedman's Bureau, who have gotten most of the credit in the history books for the first attempts to universally educate black children. 

3) When the Freedman's Bureau closed down all schools in Louisiana, residents fought back. 

Union Army General Nathaniel P. Banks arrived to New Orleans in 1863 and found a black population thirsty for knowledge. While most blacks ended up in cruel labor contracts, Banks did erect 126 black schools by 1865. These schools were sustained by property taxes. Over 60% of black children between five and twelve years old were enrolled in one. When the Freedman's Bureau arrived in 1866, they shut down all the schools and suspended the corresponding tax. Black people were so pissed that they demanded to be allowed to pay the tax. While the Freedman's Bureau dragged their feet, black parents and churches erected "free schools". They kept these schools open even when the Freedman's Bureau established their own institutions in 1867. Free schools even outnumbered them that same year- 65 to 56!

4) White people were shocked at how badly black people wanted to learn 

Former white planters hated that blacks were being educated and didn't like the labor class learning in general. They were correct in guessing that literacy would lead to voting. Additionally, literacy meant workers could actually read labor contracts. Then there was the assumption that educated blacks would be uppity and spoiled. The predominant attitude was that "learning will spoil the nigger for work." So most southern whites stressed low taxes and opposed compulsory attendance laws in addition to blocking education legislation. Some states also implemented vagrancy laws that allowed black men to be arrested if they didn't have a labor contract. Enticement laws made it illegal to try to hire a man already under a labor contract, effectively making it harder to "move up". In Alabama, whites who employed black domestics would fire servants whose children went to school.

On the other hand, poor whites were disturbed at black gains in education. Many had been tied to white planter ideals during slavery and faced few opportunities for upgrading their social status. But that changed during Reconstruction, and their feelings only intensified when some wealthy whites began to think that all white children should be educated. In 1866 the white school superintendent of Louisiana encouraged other states to similarly educate all white children, saying in doing so they would be "properly prepared to maintain the supremacy of the white race." 

5. So the concept of universal education had to be made more palatable 

White thinkers like Thomas Muldrop Logan began emphasizing an education system for whites and blacks that would maintain the southern social hierarchy. Blacks were made prime targets for industrial education by Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who established the Hampton Institute in 1868. It was a normal school, or institution that trained teachers. Armstrong thought that removing black people from effective roles in politics was true reconstruction. How did he want to do this?

He insisted that ex-slaves were morally deficient, and that they shouldn't vote or hold office. Morality is conveniently non-quantifiable, unlike literacy and property ownership. Ignoring the growing number of literate and property owning blacks, Armstrong claimed that those things could be acquired in a generation but that moral development for black people would take centuries. 

His goal with the Hampton Institute was to train black teachers to pass along the notion of the "dignity of labor" and "self help". Ultimately, he wanted these teachers to douse black children in industrial education so that they would not only accept their disenfranchisement, but also make them more productive. His most famous student was former slave Booker T Washington, who often makes a sanitized appearance in history textbooks. 

Watch the video called Why No School Should Be Named After Booker T Washington (posting tomorrow afternoon) for more information on the Hampton Institute and industrial education!  

Sources

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-`1935 (James D. Anderson)

"Being in the Field of Education and also Being a Negro...Seems...Tragic": Black Teachers in the Jim Crow South (Adam Fairclough)