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The Reconstruction era was the period in American history which lasted from 1863 to 1877. It was a significant chapter in the history of American civil rights.
During the Reconstruction Era, African Americans in the former slave-holding states saw education as an important step towards achieving equality, independence, and prosperity. As a result, they found ways to learn despite the many obstacles that poverty and white people placed in their path. African Americans’ commitment to education had lasting effects on the former slave-holding states. As voters and legislators, they played crucial roles in creating public schools for blacks and whites in the Southern and border states in the late 1800s.
In Sharpsburg, Maryland, a small church known as Tolson’s Chapel was at the center of local blacks’ efforts to educate themselves and their children. African American Methodists built Tolson’s Chapel in 1866, just two years after the end of slavery in Maryland in 1864. For much of the period between 1868 and 1899, this modest building near the site of the Civil War Battle of Antietam served as both a church and a school. The history of the schools housed in Tolson’s Chapel illustrates how African Americans across the former slave-holding states created and sustained schools during Reconstruction.
African American Education in Sharpsburg, 1864-1869
As African Americans built lives as free people in a free society during Reconstruction, they eagerly sought opportunities to learn. Before Emancipation, whites generally denied or restricted African Americans’ access to education in an effort to justify and maintain slavery. Learning to read therefore became a symbol of freedom for African Americans in the former slave-holding states. African Americans had other reasons for making literacy a priority after slavery ended. Many hoped that education would improve their economic circumstances and offer some protection from fraud and exploitation. They also saw education as important preparation for participating in civic life.
African Americans faced significant challenges in their efforts to create schools during Reconstruction. One problem was a shortage of qualified teachers. In the early years of Reconstruction, local African Americans who could already read and write shared their knowledge with family, friends, and neighbors. In Sharpsburg, Maryland, for instance, David B. Simons, a literate African American and trustee of Tolson’s Chapel, likely taught some children and adults in the town in the mid-1860s. However, given the small number of literate African Americans in most communities in the former slave-holding states, there were not enough local teachers to meet the demand. In addition, black communities often struggled to afford to pay a teacher’s salary.
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