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In the colonial and antebellum years of the United States, the education of African Americans was mainly provided by missionary and charitable organizations. Most slaveholders were fearful that an educated enslaved population would threaten their authority, spread abolitionist materials, and lead to insurrections. Southern states, including Virginia in 1819, passed laws prohibiting the education of enslaved people and free black citizens. These laws prohibiting the teaching of African Americans remained in effect until 1863 when West Virginia was carved out of the western portion of Virginia. The adoption of West Virginia’s Constitution in 1863 provided for the establishment of state schools, but made no references to the education of African Americans. Three years later, the Legislature passed a bill providing public schools for African Americans. This bill called for the establishment of schools for African Americans in sub-districts containing at least thirty black children between the ages of six and twenty-one. They had to maintain an average attendance of fifteen students, or face closure.1 The law was eventually amended to allow the establishment of schools in districts whenever there were at least ten black children of school age. An 1872 revision of the state constitution stipulated that white and black students should not be taught in the same school. ![]() The need for African American teachers increased drastically in the late 1800s with the opening of coal fields in the southern part of the state. The coal industry attracted large numbers of African Americans seeking good- paying jobs in the mines and better education for their children. Population in the southern West Virginia counties boomed. By 1906, there were 9,874 black students attending school in the state, the majority in Fayette, McDowell, Kanawha, Greenbrier, and Mercer counties. Black schools included 219 common, 42 grade schools, and 5 high schools and employed 310 African American teachers. These teachers were paid an average annual salary of $231, the same as white teachers at the time. ![]() ![]() 1 State Superintendent of Schools, The History of Education In West Virginia, Tribune Printing Company, Charleston, 1907 |
Last updated: January 22, 2020