[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Education of Blacks in the South
The freedmen and women of the Ante-Bellum South had a thirst and hunger for knowledge known by few; often learning from another freedman who had just learned to read himself, freed slaves attended schools in the evenings and on weekends. Parents made every possible sacrifice to secure their children's education. The first freedmen's schools were run by the freedmen and women themselves.
The history of the education of blacks in America has become politicized to the point where it is barely recognizable as history, rather than as an arsenal of horror stories to be used in the political wars of today. Many of these horror stories are true, even if increasingly dated, but there is an almost complete disregard of other important aspects of the history of black education that are also true.
Governor Wallace stood in front of the entrance to a building on the campus of the University of Alabama, in order to try to prevent black students from being enrolled. Yes, white mobs jeered and attacked the first black college students to enroll in previously segregated Southern colleges and universities. Worse, such mobs tried to impede the enrolment of black youngsters in public schools in various Northern cities, as well as in the South. But the real story is that all these efforts failed. And they failed because the American government, with the support of the American people, would not stand for letting them succeed. More important, these episodes were just episodes in a much larger epic.
During the era of slavery, it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, throughout the Western Hemisphere. In parts of the antebellum South, it was also illegal for free blacks to be educated, and there was no provision for them to be educated in much of the North.............
