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America has progressed in its views on race and the educational system. This can be observed by taking a brief glance at the early history of African Americans and the United States’ educational system.
In 1619, Africans first arrived as slaves in the colonies.
By the middle of the 19th century, there were 4.5 million African Americans in the United States. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had created many schools for African Americans. At the time, Southern states were strongly opposed to educating African Americans, particularly because the South was strongly pro-slavery. From receiving an education came the fear that slaves would become to knowledgeable to conduct work without question.
In 1863 education for blacks was at a low. Then President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In the 1860s, the literacy rate was approximately 5 percent. It rose to 40 percent by 1890. In 1910, that literacy rate rose to 70 percent for African Americans.
It took major social change, as well as a Civil War victory to bring about change in the educational system for African Americans. However, the change was remarkable. African Americans were able to gain the education that everyone in the country deserved. The educational system in itself has been evolving in the last few centuries and has only made a recent jump in the last few decades to the more modern educational system that people see today. It’s certainly an astonishing fact that African Americans leap from a five percent literacy rate to 70 percent in less than one century.
The truth is that the educational system is still transforming. Perhaps, the educational system’s prominent transformation is in the implementation of technology. However, there was once a time when it was more of a prominent social issue, rather than the education itself.
