Frances Harper was a prominent African American writer, abolitionist, and women's rights activist in the 19th century. In addition to her well-known works of literature and activism, Harper also played a significant role in the establishment and support of Freedmen's schools during the Reconstruction era. Harper actively supported Freedmen's schools through her involvement in various organizations, such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the National Association of Colored Women. She also used her writing and public speaking platforms to advocate for the education of African Americans and to raise awareness of the importance of Freedmen's schools.

Charlotte Forten was an African American educator, abolitionist, and writer who played a significant role in establishing and teaching in Freedmen's schools during the Reconstruction era in the United States. Forten's work in the Freedmen's schools was groundbreaking and helped to lay the foundation for future advancements in education for African Americans in the South. Her dedication to teaching and her advocacy for equality inspired generations of educators and activists.

Source: "Charlotte Forten Grimké." National Park Service, 2023,

www.nps.gov/people/charlotte-forten-grimke.htm.

Frances Harper was an American poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist. She was a teacher in the Freedmen's schools during the Reconstruction era. Harper's work focused on the plight of African Americans, both before and after the Civil War. She wrote poems, essays, and speeches that advocated for civil rights and equality. In her work as a teacher, Harper helped to educate freed slaves and to prepare them for citizenship.

Charlotte Forten was an African-American teacher who taught in the Freedmen's schools in the South during the Reconstruction era. She was a passionate advocate for education and believed that education was the key to improving the lives of African Americans. her work as a teacher and her contributions to the Freedmen's schools left a lasting legacy.

When the Freedmen's Bureau ended in 1872, the schools it had established were turned over to the states. In most cases, the state governments were not interested in providing funding for the schools, and as a result, they fell into disrepair or were closed. In some cases, private organizations took over the schools, but they often lacked the resources to provide a quality education. As a result, the quality of education for African Americans declined in the late 1870s and 1880s.

In the 1890s, a number of southern states passed laws that segregated schools. These laws required that African American children attend separate schools from white children. The quality of education in these schools was often very poor, and they were often underfunded. As a result, African American children received a much lower quality of education than white children.

In addition to teaching, they were often required to provide for the basic needs of the freedmen.  The needs of the freed enslaved people were extensive.  They needed clothing, "I did not see one who had a change of clothing, and some had on but one garment, and that made of tent cloth.: (Miss Barnes, The National Freedman, 1865).  The teachers accounted for their needs and made those public in search of support.  Teachers taught the basics of learning such as reading and also gave lessons on management and life skills.  Throughout slavery, there were teachers and autodidacts like Frederick Dougals and Harriel Tubman who also encouraged others to resist oppression. As Caroline E. Croome explains, "teaching school is only part of my business (of course, the chief part); but I am called upon to act as physician, nurse, notary publi, church-warden, justice of the peace (don't laugh, please, at my high-sounding letters, for they are very serious things;, undertaker, and corresponding secretary"

Mary Peake was a teacher for the first school for "contrabands: opened at Fortress Monroe in 1861.  She was African-American.  She started a school which included her young daugter and she also started an evening school for adults.

Charlotte Forten was the first African-American Freedmen's teacher from the North. She was a well-educated free black from a wealthy Philadelphia family who taught at the Oaks Plantation.  

The schools were rustic building that serve both as churches and schools.  they wre bit suitable specially during the winter..  Jane Briggs describes her school as modest, " it has sashed windows which make it something better than a barn."  Another teacher, Charlotte Forten, describes her school as damp and cold and without a chimney.

What happened to these schools in the late 1870s and 1880s-1890s:  Notes from "Schools for All:  The Backs and Public Education in the South, 1865-1877 by William Preston Vaughn, North Texas State University.

In 1867, before the bureau closed, its commissioner, Oliver Otis Howard, proposed a plan for continuing education with funds from the U.S. Department of Education.  Congress did not approve this plan and the Bureau closed in 1870.  Thee Bureau helped established organizations of higher learning such as Saint Martin's School, National Theological Institute, and Howard University.  It also gave support to schools in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.  There was opposition to freedmen's schools:  school burnings, destruction of textbooks, and threats to teachers. After the closure of the Bureau, education of the African American population was taken over by state governments and most of the southern states provided education in segregated schools. 

In 1874, Alabama framed a new constitution which stated that separate schools were to be provided for African Americans. In 1965, laws in Arkansas kept students separate by race. Florida had separate schools despite their own laws against discrimination. Mississippi forbade teaching of mixed races in the same schools. The U.S. Congress itself had established a segregated school system in the District of Columbia.  Louisiana was the only state that passes a law that stated “there shall be no separate schools or institutions of learning established exclusively for any race.”

By the 1860s literacy in the black population was 10% and in a decade it increased to over 25%.  By the 1870s, northern teachers had left and most of the educators were African American southerners. “The closing of the bureau schools did not mean an abrupt cessation to black education in the South there was, instead, a relatively smooth period of transition in which most of the bureau schools were absorbed into the public school systems of each Southern state. The reorganization and general improvement of these systems for the education of both races on a tuition-free basis undoubtedly proved to be the most outstanding and durable achievement of the Radical state governments between 1868 and 1877." Integrated education was not successful.  Philanthropic foundations like the Peabody Fund and the John F. Slater Fund upgraded education in a segregated way. Later the 14^th and 15^th amendments provided for laws regarding segregation to be changed.

Both men and women served as Freedmen's teachers, but many were single women from the North. Although they had diverse backgrounds, many were committed to religious or social reform. With the challenges large class sizes and limited resources, these teachers focused on instilling basic skills, and discipline. 

Describe the work of these teachers and the value that they added to their communities.  

Classrooms had a variety of students (including adult learners) at different levels in their learning. Freedmen's teachers utilized methods like having advanced students assist beginners. They also served the critical social needs of their students; food, clothing and more.

Complete some outside research on one of the following teachers. Please tell us about this teacher and their contribution to the Freedmen’s schools.

Charlotte Forten Grimké was known for her activism and contributions to education. She was born in 1837 to activist parents in Philadelphia's elite Black community. Forten received private education due to her family's status. She later moved to Salem, MA where she joined the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society and pursued teaching at Salem Normal School.

In 1862, she relocated to South Carolina with the goal of educating freed people. Forten shares her experiences in her diaries. One entry entails children too young to learn the alphabet had to accompany their older siblings to schools. The parents left the younger children in their care so they had no choice but to bring them to school. Most students were happy to learn and those who stayed after class would get to learn the history of inspiring people. They learn the John Brown song and about Toussaint L'Ouverture.

At the age of 41, she married the Reverend Francis J. Grimké and they had one child who died in infancy. In 1896, Forten helped found the National Association of Colored Women. She remained active in the civil rights movement until her death on July 23, 1914.

Finally, complete some outside research of your own and describe what happened to these schools in the late 1870s and 1880s–1890s after the Freedmen’s Bureau agency ended. 

I chose to research one state, Georgia. The Freedmen's Bureau established numerous schools in Georgia from 1865-1870. After the Freedmen's Bureau closed, local education societies continued to administer these schools.

Before the Civil War (1861-65), Georgia had no system of public education. In 1870, Georgia made its first attempt to create public schools.

The teachers, for the most part, modeled the curriculum on that of the northern antebellum common schools with a lot of rote learning and recitation emphasized and a focus on learning to read and write (basic literacy). This was a radical idea – since during slavery, it was illegal to teach a slave how to read and write. Significantly, they also attempted to help their students “unlearn” the identity of a slave: I’d like to learn more about this goal. Along with traditional reading, writing, and arithmetic, they also taught "lessons of industry, of domestic management and thrift, lessons of truth and honesty," ideals reflective of northern white middle-class society. A large percentage of their students were adults, about 1/3 of the students in Georgia’s Freedmen’s Schools. The curriculum and its melding of literacy with other skills and challenges to white supremacist beliefs foreshadows the Freedom Schools established during the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, and I am interested in learning more about the curricula in these various schools (which I’m sure varied) and also whether the Freedom Summer volunteers were inspired by the Freedmen’s Schools 100 years earlier. In both the Freedmen’s Schools and Freedom Summer schools, the teachers were predominantly young white northerners who traveled down to the South to try to help the African Americans claim their rights and equality through education as well as in other aspects of their lives.

There are many other ways that the Freedmen’s Schools of Reconstruction were similar to those of the Freedom Summer Project: makeshift school facilities (in an old church or shack or even outdoors) and the backlash they faced by southern white supremacists, just to name two.

The Freedmen’s School teachers also helped to distribute needed supplies, such as food, clothing, and blankets, helped freedpeople find shelter, and provided medical aid. Caroline Croome, a teacher in North Carolina, commented on the sheer number of duties she had beyond the work of a classroom teacher: “Teaching school is only part of my business (of course, the chief part); but I am called upon to act as physician, nurse, notary public, church-warden, justice of the peace (don't laugh, please, at my high-sounding letters, for they are very serious things), undertaker, and corresponding secretary, for all the colored between Newbern and Beaufort.”

Significantly, some of the Freedmen’s School teachers were African Americans: 25% of the Freedmen’s Schools teachers in Georgia. Charlotte Forten Grimké is considered to be the first northern African American teacher in the Freedmen’s Schools; she taught at the Penn School on St. Helena Island, one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands (though only for two years, due to illness – which was another challenge faced by many of these teachers due to the unhealthy environment and epidemics in the South at this time). She was born to a free and fairly privileged Philadelphia family; her parents were activists in the abolitionist movement as was her grandfather and were part of the same social circles as William Lloyd Garrison (the prominent white abolitionist) and the black minister Richard Allen. Charlotte received a strong education first with a tutor (instead of the segregated black public schools in Philadelphia), then in Salem, Massachusetts, where she lived with a black abolitionist family in order to attend an integrated private girls’ school. She continued her education at the Normal School in Salem (a teacher training school) and then became the first African American hired in Salem’s public schools. She also became a key abolitionist leader in the 1850s, publishing poems in The Liberator and other anti-slavery publications and encouraging black women to join the abolitionist movement. From 1862-1864, she taught at the Penn School and wrote extensively about her experiences as a Freedmen’s School teacher; her diaries are an illuminating and important primary source. One diary entry conveys her attempt to instill pride in her students through teaching them about influential African Americans: "Talked to the children a little while to-day about the noble Toussaint ...It is well that they should know what one of their own color could do for his race." I found it interesting that though she had hoped to connect with the African American community, she instead discovered that she had more in common with the white abolitionists on St. Helena.  If her married name sounds familiar – that’s because she later married the nephew of the famous Grimké sisters, Angelina and Sarah, prominent abolitionists and women’s rights activists. After she returned to the North, ultimately settling in Washington, D.C., she continued her activism, notably as a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896.

It's important to note that even though the Freedmen’s Schools provided educational opportunities for African Americans, the Freedmen’s Bureau was severely underfunded; in Georgia during the heyday of the Freedmen’s Schools (Reconstruction), only 10% of the state’s African American population gained access to an education. And, due to the Freedmen’s Bureau’s limited funds, the free black communities themselves had to take on the majority of the funding of the Freedmen’s Schools.

My research indicates that after Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Schools ended as southern white supremacists sought to limit opportunities for African Americans and segregation took hold: a segregated public school system emerged with very little funding available for African American schools. In Georgia, “from 1870 until well into the twentieth century, white Georgians sought to limit public funding for Black education. Local districts refused to support public secondary education for African American students. Teachers in Black schools received lower salaries than those in white schools, regardless of the teachers’ race, and construction and maintenance of Black schools were neglected. The state would not provide public higher education to its former bondsmen until it founded Georgia State Industrial College (later Savannah State University) in 1891.” [Butchart, Ronald. "Freedmen’s Education during Reconstruction." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Sep 16, 2020. removed link In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, those African Americans who did manage to access a formal education were mostly limited to Booker T. Washington’s concept of industrial education which emphasized vocational skills and manual labor instead of academic training for African Americans.

The Freedmen’s Bureau, despite its short duration and underfunding, ultimately had a positive legacy on African American education, helping to fund the establishment of several historically black colleges, including Atlanta University (1865; now Clark Atlanta University) and Fisk University (1866; originally the Fisk School), named for Gen. Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen’s Bureau, who gave the school its original facilities in a former Union army barracks.

The Freedmen teachers were a group of people who came from different backgrounds. They traveled to the South to teach, most of the teachers were women but there were also few men. This group of teachers were desired to be freethinkers, and motivated by their patriotism and religion. 

The Freedmen teachers often had to teach large groups of students and adults with few resources. Which led teachers to use the approach of students observing and thinking for themselves. These teachers went beyond just teaching academics. Some even provided students with clothing and food when needed. Thus leading teachers to gain love and respect from students.  

• Mary Peake was born free in Virginia. She began her career at a young age, she secretly taught enslaved and free African Americans  how to read and write. She did this at a time when this was restricted. Furthermore, Mary is significantly recognized for being the first African American Women to be hired by the American Missionary Association. During her time there, she was an eager teacher ready to teach her students with great intention. She taught a group of students with the capability of great intellectuality  and other talents. Mary was not content with the way students were  being taught, therefore, she made it her mission to change the way of teaching. She pursued teaching in a way that will help students in the future. She made great contributions to the Freedmen’s school. As well as gaining the love and respect of her students.  She died on February 22, 1862.

The Freedmen’s School Bureau finalized their support to schools in 1870. Most of the schools were deserted. Due to segregation still being active, in 1872, legislation passed a law that enforced a public school for African Americans in each district. African Americans continued to attend thus, showing their dedication to their education. 

Mary Smith Peake - Mary was the first African American teacher hired by the American Missionary Association. According to nationalparkservice.com, she taught "contrabands" how to read and write in a community near Fort Monroe. Mary was born free in Norfolk, Virginia. She taught other African Americans to read, which was, at the time, against the law. She married Thomas Peake and eventually succumbed to TB in 1862.

Francis Ellen Watkins Harper - According to the National Women's History Museum, Francis was a poet, author, and lecturer. In addition, she was an abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer who founded the National Association of colored Women's Clubs. At age 26, she became the first woman instructor at Union Seminary, a school for fear African Americans. She married Fenton Harper in 1860--the two had a daughter named Mary. Francis spent the rest of her life advocating for equal rights until she died in 1911.

Charlotte Forten - According to PBS Online: Only a Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers, Charlotte was the first Northern African American schoolteacher to go to the South to teach former slaves. She is best remembered for her diaries which chronicled her work which was devoted to promoting social justice. Charlotte died in 1914.

What happened to the Freedman's Schools in the...

1870s - At first, the Freedman's Bureau provided the schools with necessities like food and clothing. They set up hospitals and temporary housing for freed African Americans. They also arranged for freed men to work with plantation owners. Eventually, old biases and racist attitudes forced the closure of the Bureau.

1880s - There was growing resistance by whites, many of whom were uneducated, that educating African Americans would distract them from working and empower them. Funding for the schools waned and it was difficult to find quality teachers. Teachers who served, were often issued death threats and relied on the freedman's Bureau and the U.S. Army for protection.

1890s - Many local school districts across the South refused to fund African American schools. African American teachers received lower salaries than whites. School infastructures were not maintained. Assistance from the federal government dried up, resulting in widespread closures.

Charlotte Forten was the first African Amreican Freedmen's teacher from the North. She published "Life on the Sea Islands" in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1864. She was born and raised as a free citizen.

The Freedmen's Bureau ended its support for the schools in 1870. By then, public school systems had been established in many Confederate states in part due to the activism and advocacy of black people in voting and legislation. Thus, segregated systems of education were available, until deemed unequal by Brown V Board of Education. As we all know and see where we live, especially in the public schools, de facto segregation continues to exist, as race and social class intermingle and the quality of the neighborhood school continues to depend on the wealth of the neighborhood.

My sources were the American Antiquarian Society Website (provided in the prompt) and the National Parks Service page on African American education during Reconstruction: 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/african-americans-and-education-during-reconstruction-the-tolson-s-chapel-schools.htm

• • Mary Peake

• • Frances Harper 

• • Charlotte Forten 

• Finally, complete some outside research of your own and describe what happened to these schools in the late 1870s and 1880s–1890s after the Freedmen’s Bureau agency ended. 

-Nancy Tallas