Education of the Negroes Since 1860

This scholarly paper offers a thorough chronicle of African‑American education from the Civil War through the closing years of the nineteenth century. Written for the trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, it was meant to guide teachers, administrators, and legislators who oversaw schools for the newly emancipated. By weaving together statistics, official reports, and personal observations, it sketches the early experiments, obstacles, and shifting philosophies that shaped the emerging system.

The author examines how churches, philanthropists, and state governments gradually built a network of schools, revised curricula, and debated the influence of culture, heredity, and geography on learning. He also connects these domestic efforts to broader questions of nation‑building and the United States’ emerging role on an African continent in flux. Listeners will come away with a nuanced sense of the monumental progress achieved and the complex challenges that still lay ahead.