Educate yourself, no matter what

             “During the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom.”- Reconstruction and Its Aftermath

              Teachers from the North and South, of both races were teaching and former slaves of all ages were learning to obtain a successful life on their own.

 

            “Yet in this era blacks were educated in unprecedented numbers, hundreds received degrees from institutions of higher learning, and a few, like W.E.B. DuBois and Carter G. Woodson, went on for the doctorate. While only a small percentage of the black population had been literate at the close of the Civil War, by the turn of the twentieth century, the majority of all African Americans were literate. The Library of Congress houses the papers of three presidents of Tuskegee Institute: Booker T. Washington, Robert Russa Moton, and Frederick Douglass Patterson, and other important manuscripts and photographs relating to the establishment, operations, aspirations, and success of historically black colleges and universities. - The Booker T. Washington Era

            While this was a difficult time for African Americans with the actions of the court not being in their favor, and the violence against them, they were still getting educated. Hundreds were getting college degrees. Soon after the Civil War, only a few were literate. That changed at the turn of the 20^th century. Most African Americans were literate. The Library of Congress houses documents of Booker T. Washington, Robert Russa Moton, and Frederick Douglass Patterson, the Tuskegee Institute presidents.

 

Valerie