LOS ANGELES - Carter G. Woodson was born in 1875, the son of slaves, and was kept from attending school until he was 20 years old. "For me," he wrote, "education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better." He resolutely believed in the importance of education and went on to earn a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and, in 1912, received a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Education was a springboard to a better life for Woodson and other African Americans. His love of education led to his place in American history. Called "the father of Negro history," he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. He authored or edited more than ten volumes on African American subjects and, in 1926, organized Negro History Week, which is now celebrated as African American Heritage Month in February.
Woodson's story is just one of a multitude of stories about African Americans who fought to learn because they cherished education and teaching. Their struggle would be long and difficult.
Prior to Emancipation, enslaved blacks were forbidden to learn to read. Despite these prohibitions and severe punishments, many blacks valued literacy and learned to read despite these restrictions. Some slaves were taught by whites, but a significant number were taught by freed blacks or by literate slaves. These well respected, and sometimes formally educated, teachers chanced severe retribution by teaching blacks to read, often in secret. Their brave acts passed on the power of literacy to their peers.
In an article in "The Journal of American History," Adam Fairclough wrote that early black teachers in the South, "[were] in the forefront of the struggle for literacy and education played a critical role in defining, articulating, and advancing the aspirations of blacks. Mass illiteracy among the freedmen made teachers a natural source of race leadership, and the organization of schools helped blacks define themselves as communities."
As blacks in the South were struggling to learn, and to teach, Northern-educated blacks began teaching in the missionary schools of Union-occupied Virginia as early as 1862. In the same year, Virginia's first school for training black teachers was established.
As soon as Savannah, Georgia was occupied by Union troops in 1864, liberated blacks formed the Savannah Education Association, which quickly raised eight hundred dollars and founded several other schools, including freemen's schools and Sunday schools that were independent of Northern whites.
According to historian Fairclough, black teachers [in the South] outnumbered white ones very soon after the Civil War, and when black men gained the right to vote, these teachers provided political leadership. "Black teachers strove for, and often attained, positions of community leadership," he wrote, adding, "Along with ministers, they enjoyed prestige and wielded influence." Despite the challenges of school segregation and harassment, the African American population has made one of the greatest advancements in the history of education. Denied an education by law in slave states and facing inequality of educational opportunities in free states, only seven percent of the African American population was literate in 1863. Within a 90-year period, the literacy rate jumped to 90 percent. This could never have occurred without the persistent efforts of black teachers who were able to tear down the barriers created by segregation.
"In The Struggle To Become Educated, African Americans Make Greatest Achievement: Part I. " Oakland Post [Oakland, Calif.] 4 Dec. 2002,5. Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW). ProQuest. University Libraries, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green. 5 Oct. 2007
2. I found this media item on Ethnic Newswatch. It explains how the education process started for African Americans and discussed how far African American’s have come in their education. The article starts out with a story about Carter Woodson and how he worked to make huge strides in his own education and the education of other African Americans after the Civil War. It told how he worked hard to learn as much as he could and he eventually obtained his B.A. and M.A. from University of Chicago and his Ph. D. from Harvard. People eventually gave him the title “the author of negro history” as he used his education to found the Association for the study of Negro life and History. The article then explains how African Americans fought hard to get more education even though it meant horrible circumstances if they were found learning. The article said that early black teachers were at the forefront of advancing the aspirations of blacks. The article said that black teachers strove for leadership positions in the black community. The article concludes by saying that African Americans made one of the greatest leaps in education in the history of civilization. Before 1983 only seven percent of the African American population was educated. But in a ninety year span, ninety percent of the population became educated. I chose this article because I was interested in how blacks became educated. During the slave era, they were punished if they read and after that they were discriminated against. I was interested to see how their education advanced over the years.
3. I think that this item relates to Kindred fairly well. During Dana’s trips to slavery ridden Maryland. It lists a few times when she tried to teach the slaves on the plantation to read. The first time when she was caught she faced the excruciating consequences of being whipped in front of all of the slaves. This article explains that slaves and freed slaves taking the chances of getting beaten and whipped, were the ones that helped the education process among blacks begin. Also in the book, Alice asks Rufus for their biracial children to be educated. So there were probably also cases where when the master of the plantation and one of the slaves had children together, they were probably also educated. Then the blacks who became educated didn’t back down under the circumstances of being enslaved again or being segregated. They continued to do whatever they could to educate more African Americans.
4. I think it is amazing what the African Americans have accomplished in the last 150 years after the Civil War regarding their education. To go from only having seven percent of African Americans being educated to having over ninety percent of African American being educated in that short of time frame is simply astonishing, especially thinking of the roadblocks that they have had to go through to get to that level. First there were physical threats of being whipped or maybe even killed during slavery. Then after that their were the segregation issues that made it hard for the next hundred and fifty years and that is still a problem today. In my Psychology textbook I read that African Americans have increased their IQ’s by over 150% in matter of years while other races have not been even close to that number. It is a wonderful thing that some African Americans are finally being rewarded for their hard work and for the hard work of their past generations.
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