"A Perfect Reign of Terror": White Violence and Black Education During the Reconstruction Era, 1863–1880

• In Event: Race, Educational Access, and Resistance in the 19th Century

Abstract

With emancipation in 1863, the freedpeople were relentless in their educational endeavors, openly seeking education and using their newly legalized political and social power to establish and maintain schools across the South. Violence, however, was predominant as whites targeted Black schools, Black and white teachers, and other expressions and embodiments of education. As formerly enslaved Blacks moved into public life, and demonstrated their autonomy, the white South responded with a regime of terror. This paper explores how white violence manifested in direct attacks against the people, institutions, and tools of freedom and learning. It also unearths the structures of violence that continued to shape the development of public education, and how constructed meanings of race informed the purposes of education.

Author

• Tonya Kneff-Chang, University of Michigan