Question

Schools and public education were important issues to free african americans because

Answer 1

Answer:

Because education was completely denied to slaves before their Emancipation and it was on the basis of lack of education, and schooling, that opposers to the Civil Rights Acts, argued that African Americans could not be allowed to vote, which basically, placed them underneath the level of citizens.

Explanation:

Before the Civil War, before slaves were emancipated, one thing that was always denied to them was the access to any kind of schooling, or education. Most slaves were unable to read or write, and there were very few the cases in which this was not so. After the Civil War, and through the Civil Rights Acts, the United States attempted to give a more equal treatment to freed slaves, and bring them into their rightful place as citizens. However, segregationists, and those who opposed an equal treatment for African Americans, especially when it came to voting, used the argument of lack of education to support their cause of not letting African Americans be treated equally. They were considered inferior, because they were also seen as less smart than white people. This is why the subject of schooling and public education, became tantamount to the African American cause.

Answer 2

Laws before the Civil War made it illegal to teach slaves how to read.
(Apex)