Essay On Black American Education

The history of official education for black Americans has been tragically short. Although during the antebellum period there was expanding equality of education, these opportunities were not taken to include other races and immigrants (Pillars pg. 92). Most White Southern slaveholders were adamantly opposed to the education of their slaves because they feared an educated slave population would threaten their authority (Du Bois 23). Literacy increases white anxiety because reading reinforced an existing desire of freedom and made it seem possible (self-taught pg. 27). There was nothing equal about education in this time, because it was illegal. Opportunities for schooling expanded following emancipation as black schools were established. After the civil war, for African Americans, education provided social and economic mobility, but it would never create an equal playing field because of

By going to schools, students became literate, were taught methods of communication, and learned about banking and commerce (Washington, 6). Not only were these skills valuable in preparing for work and further education, they aided in providing knowledge about economics and marketing. Students could use these acquired skills and become valuable assets to their employers and create their own work. Another resource freed blacks had, were industrial schools. These institutions were established upon the idea that people needed more than book learning to become prosperous in their lives (Washington, 8). Booker T. Washington, a former slave, represented the compromise between the northern southern whites and black citizens by encouraging industrial education and emphasizing progress and accumulation of wealth within their racial standing (Du Bois, 14). In their group of black freemen, people could rise economically and gain a better social