In
the early part of the 19th century there were
no schools in the southern states of America admitted black children
to its free public schools. Some brave teachers such as John
Chavis in Rayleigh, North Carolina, ran secret night schools. Teachers
found educating black children would be run out of town. Margaret
Douglass, who was caught teaching black children in Norfolk, Virginia,
was convicted and imprisoned for her actions.
The situation was better in the North and the first African Free School
was opened in New York City in 1787. This school and six others in
the city began receiving public funding in 1824.
People who graduated from these schools included Henry
Highland Garnet and Ira Aldridge.
When Prudence Crandall, a Quaker,
opened a school for black girls in Canterbury, Connecticut, attempts
were made by local white people to burn the building down. Despite
attempts to prevent the school receiving essential supplies, Crandall
school continued and began to attract girls from Boston and Philadelphia.
The local authorities then began using a vagrancy law against these
students. These girls could now be given ten lashes of the whip for
attending the school. William Lloyd Garrison
reported the case in the Liberator
and with the support of the Anti-Slavery
Society Crandall continued to run the school.
In 1834 Connecticut passed a law making it illegal to provide a free
education for black students. When Prudence
Crandall refused to obey the law she was arrested and imprisoned.
Crandall was convicted but won the case on appeal. When news of the
court decision reached Canterbury, a white mob attacked the school
and threatened the lives of Crandall and her students. Afraid that
the children would be killed or badly injured, Crandall decided to
close her school down.
In 1849 Charles Sumner helped Sarah
C. Roberts to sue the city of Boston for refusing to admit black children
to its schools. Their case was lost but in 1855 Massachusetts legislature
changed its policy and declared that "no person shall be excluded
from a Public School on account of race, colour or prejudice."
New York African Free School
(1)
Francis
Fredric, Fifty Years of Slavery (1863)
My mistress took a fancy to
me, and began to teach me some English words and phrases, for I only
knew how to say "dis" and "dat," "den"
and "dere," and a few such monosyllables. It is a saying
among the masters, the bigger fool the better nigger. Hence all knowledge,
except what pertains to work, is systematically kept from the field-slaves.
My mistress made me stand before her to learn from her how I was to
take a message. "Now, Francis," she said, "I want to
make you quite a ladies' man. You must always be very polite to the
ladies. You must say, 'I will go and tell the ladies.'" I repeated
some hundreds of times, "I will go and tell the ladies."
After some days' training, she thought she had made me sufficiently
perfect to deliver a message. "Francis!" "Yes, marm,"
I said. "Go and tell Mrs.---- that I shall feel obliged by her
calling upon me at half-past twelve o'clock to-morrow." "Yes,
marm," I said; and she made me repeat the message some dozens
of times. When perfect, as she thought, away I went, repeating all
the way, feel
obliged by your calling upon her at half-past twelve; Missis will,"
etc., until I met a gentleman on the road who had seen and heard me
repeating the words over and over again before I saw him. He called
out, "Whom are you talking to?" I jumped, and every word
jumped out of me, for I forgot it all. I ran back to my mistress and
told her I had forgotten it, but did not tell her the reason why.
(2)
Henry
Bibb, The Life and Adventures of an American Slave (1851)
Slaves
were not allowed books, pen, ink, nor paper, to improve their minds.
There was a Miss Davies, a poor white girl, who offered to teach a
Sabbath School for the slaves. Books were supplied and she started
the school; but the news got to our owners that she was teaching us
to read. This caused quite an excitement in the neighbourhood. Patrols
were appointed to go and break it up the next Sabbath.
(3)
Frederick
Douglass, letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe
(8th March, 1853)
You kindly informed me, when at your house a fortnight ago, that you
designed to do something which should permanently contribute to the
improvement and elevation of the free colored people in the United
States. You especially expressed an interest in such of this class
as had become free by their own exertions, and desired most of all
to be of service to them. In what manner, and by what means you can
assist this class most successfully, is the subject upon which you
have done me the honor to ask my opinion.
I assert then that poverty, ignorance, and degradation are the combined
evils; or in other words, these constitute the social disease of the
free colored people of the United States. To deliver them from this
triple malady, is to improve and elevate them, by which I mean simply
to put them on an equal footing with their white fellow countrymen
in the sacred right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
I am for no fancied or artificial elevation, but only ask fair play.
How shall this be obtained? I answer, first, not by establishing for
our use high schools and colleges. Such institutions are, in my judgment,
beyond our immediate occasions and are not adapted to our present
most pressing wants.
What can be done to improve the condition of the
free people of color in the United States? The plan which I humbly
submit in answer to this inquiry (and in the hope that it may find
favor with you, and with the many friends of humanity who honor, love,
and co-operate with you) is the establishment in Rochester, or in
some other part of the United States equally favorable to such an
enterprise, of an Industrial College in which shall be taught several
important branches of the mechanic arts.
The argument in favor of an Industrial College (a college to be conducted
by the best men, and the best workmen which the mechanic arts can
afford; a college where colored youth can be instructed to use their
hands, as well as their heads; where they can be put in possession
of the means of getting a living whether their lot in after life may
be cut among civilized or uncivilized men; whether they choose to
stay here, or prefer to return to the land of their fathers) is briefly
this: Prejudice against the free colored people in the United States
has shown itself nowhere so invincible as among mechanics. The farmer
and the professional man cherish no feeling so bitter as that cherished
by these. The latter would starve us out of the country entirely.
At this moment I can more easily get my son into a lawyer's office
to study law than I can into a blacksmith's shop to blow the bellows
and to wield the sledge-hammer.
(4)
Miss
Mary Battey, letter, Andersonville (December, 1866)
Our school begun - in spite
of threatenings from
the whites, and the consequent fear of the blacks - with twenty-seven
pupils, four only of whom could read, even the simplest words. At
the end of six weeks, we have enrolled eighty-five names, with but
fifteen unable to read. In seven years teaching at the North, I have
not seen a parallel to their appetite for learning, and their active
progress. Whether this zeal will abate with time, is yet a question.
I have a little fear that it may. Meanwhile it is well to "work
while the day lasts." Their spirit now may be estimated somewhat,
when I tell you that three walk a distance of four miles, each morning,
to return after the five hours session. Several
come three miles, and quite a number from two and two-and-a-half
miles.
The night school - taught
by Miss Root - numbers about forty,
mostly men, earnest, determined, ambitious. One of them
walks six miles and returns after the close of school, which
is often as late as ten o'clock. One woman walks three miles,
as do a number of the men.
On Sabbath mornings, at
half-past nine, we open our Sabbath school, which is attended by about
fifty men, women and children, who give willing, earnest attention
to our instruction. The younger ones are given to the charge of "Uncle
Charlie" - a good old negro who wants to do something to help.
Miss Root takes the women, and leaves the men to my care. As they
are unable to read, we take a text or passage of Scripture, enlarge
upon and apply it as well as we are able, answering their questions,
correcting erroneous opinions, extending their thoughts.
(5)
On
11th November, 1871, in Columbus, Mississippi, Sarah Allen was interviewed
by a Congress Committee inquiring into the 'Condition of Affairs in
the Late Insurrectionary States'.
Question: Please state your
place of residence and occupation
to the committee.
Sarah Allen: Geneseo,
Henry County, Illinois. I have no occupation at home. I am teaching
here.
Question:
State whether you have been engaged in the business of teaching in
this county.
Sarah Allen: In this county
I have been teaching a few weeks.
Question:
Were you engaged as a teacher of a school outside of Columbus at any
time?
Sarah Allen: If you refer
to my teaching school last spring, I taught in Monroe County. I was
teaching at Cotton Gin Port, twelve miles northeast of Aberdeen.
Question:
Were you teaching a white or colored school?
Sarah Allen: A colored
school.
Question:
You may state to the committee whether you were interrupted by any
persons in your business.
Sarah Allen: I taught
six weeks, until I think the 18th of March, when I was told to leave;
warned to leave, between 1 and 2 o'clock at night by about fifty men,
I think; they were disguised; there were but two that came into my
room.
Question:
Do you say they came into your room?
Sarah Allen: Between 1
and 2 o'clock at night I was wakened by a great noise around on the
outside of the house. They told me to get up. I went to the window
and asked them what they wanted. They said they wanted me to get a
light and dress; that they wanted to talk to me; that they would not
harm me. I said, "Very well," I would be ready in a few
moments. I admitted them. The captain said, "If you will take
a seat the lieutenant shall come into the room and the rest shall
stay out." The lieutenant came in with a pistol in his hand.
He sat down opposite the
fireplace. The captain sat in the center of the room. There were eight
or ten men stood inside the door, and the porch was full.
Question:
What did they say to you?
Sarah Allen: They asked
me my name and occupation, and where I came from, and what I was doing,
and who I boarded with, and what my wages were. We talked about an
hour on politics, mostly against Colonel Huggins and his whipping.
He had been whipped
about one week before that. They asked me if I had heard of it and
what I thought of it; and also asked if I had heard that other teachers
had been sent away, and what I intended to do. I told them it was
a very short notice, and I did not know. They said they never gave
a warning but once; that I was to understand it so. I told them I
did. They said I should leave - I believe the lieutenant told me I
should leave - Monday morning. That was Saturday evening, or Saturday
night. The captain said he thought that would be rather hard; he would
give me till Thursday morning to leave; that probably some one of
them would be around. I told them. I would go, if it was
possible to get away; the roads were very
bad. I did not get away until the next Tuesday.
Question:
Was there any threat made of what would be the
consequence of your continuing to teach school?
Sarah Allen: No, sir.
Question:
Further than the remark that they never gave a second
notice?
Sarah Allen: Yes, sir;
that was all.
Question:
What did you infer from that?
Sarah Allen: Well, I supposed
that they would, if I should stay and continue, take harsher means.
Question:
Did you discontinue your school in consequence
of this warning?
Sarah Allen: Yes, I did.
Question:
After you had been teaching about six weeks?
Sarah Allen: I taught
just six weeks.
Question:
For how long a term had you been engaged as a
teacher?
Sarah Allen: Four months.
Question:
What wages were you receiving per month?
Sarah Allen: Seventy-five
dollars.
Question:
Did they say what their motive was for breaking
up your school?
Sarah Allen: Yes. They
did not want radicals there in the South; did not want northern people
teaching there; they thought the colored people could educate themselves
if they needed any education; they advised me to go home again.
Question:
The men were all disguised that you saw?
Sarah Allen: Yes, sir.
Question:
Can you give the committee a description of the
disguises they wore?
Sarah Allen: They wore
long white robes, a loose mask covered the face, trimmed with scarlet
stripes. The lieutenant and captain had long horns on their head,
projecting over the forehead; a sort of device in front - some sort
of figure in front, and
scarlet stripes.
Question:
Did you recognize any one of the number?
Sarah Allen: I did not.
Question:
You have not heard of any other visitation in that
part of the country except there?
Sarah Allen: There was
a teacher left Smithville the week before I did.
Question:
A female teacher?
Sarah Allen: Yes, sir.
Question:
Was she said to be warned off?
Sarah Allen: She heard
they were coming there, and the man she was boarding with, who was
one of the school directors, thought it was best for her to leave.
Question:
Was she a northern woman?
Sarah Allen: Yes, sir.
Question:
Have you heard of any other schools in Monroe County
broken up by the same means?
Sarah Allen: Yes, sir;
nearly all the schools in Monroe County were broken up in that term,
with the exception of some in the larger places.
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