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Education
From many former slaves interviewed by the Federal Writers' Project (WPA) in the 1930s comes the lament we hear from Tom McAlpin, at right, who had been enslaved in Alabama: "I ain't never had no schoolin." Some masters punished slaves harshly for any attempt to learn, some didn't care, and a very few actively taught their slaves as an asset for their plantations' efficiency. No education? Depends on how one defines it. "Us didn' have no schoolin,'" remembers Susan Snow, also enslaved in Alabama. "Us could go to school wid de white chillun if us wanted to, but didn' nobody teach us. I's educated, but I aint educated in de books. I's educated by de licks an' bumps I got." These and other reminiscences of schooling or the lack of it are included in the first reading, as are excerpts from several nineteenth-century narratives of former slaves, describing their efforts to become educated.
From Charlotte Forten's journal entries as an adolescent in a private school in Boston (see #3: Free-born), we were introduced to a rare experience for free blacks—inclusion in an otherwise white school. For many free blacks, their choices were more limited and their initiative more necessary to procure an education. Of these choices and initiatives we read a selection from 19th- and 20th-century former slave narratives.
Finally, to return to another phase in Charlotte Forten's life, we read her article "Life on the Sea Islands," published in Atlantic Monthly in 1864, describing her experiences teaching in the school established for recently freed slaves on the South Carolina sea island of St. Helena by the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Association (thus designating this reading as appropriate also for Theme III: COMMUNITY, #5, Mutual Benefit). (xx pages.)
Discussion questions
- How did slaves, former slaves, and free-born African Americans differ in their educational opportunities and goals? How did they differ in their definition of "education"?
- What obstacles did free and enslaved African Americans need to overcome to provide educational opportunities for themselves and their children? to maximize their benefit from any opportunities?
- Imagine a discussion between any two speakers in these selections (especially Charlotte Forten with Robert Purvis, J. Holland Townsend with Noah Davis, or Tom McAlpin with Harry McMillan). What aspects of education would become front-and-center in each conversation? Why?
- How did many former slaves pursue education after the Civil War? What factors caused many former slaves to remaining uneducated (i.e., unschooled) into the 1930s? (See WPA narratives.)
- How did white people respond to African Americans' pursuit of education? How did African Americans perceive and adjust to the white people's responses?
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Framing Questions
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How did African Americans construct identity in antebellum America? |
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How did enslaved and free blacks differ in their exercise of power and self-determination?
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How did African Americans define themselves as members of groups?
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Printing
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Supplemental Sites
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| *PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software, you may download it FREE from Adobe's Web site. |
Images: Tom McAlpin, former slave interviewed in the WPA Federal Writers' Project, over age 90, at his home in Birmingham, Alabama, 10 July 1937. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division.
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