The Development of Negro Education in the District of Columbia

Abstract

There were no schools for Negroes in the District of Columbia prior to 1800. This does not mean, however, that Negroes in the District had been entirely without training for, inasmuch as the sentiment against educating Negroes was not extremely vigorous during the early history of the Nation's capital, many were encouraged, by tolerant Whites, to pick up fragments of knowledge wherever and by such means as they could. They were taught in Sunday and evening schools in Washington and Georgetown (as well as the county), which were separate municipalities. Some Negroes were allowed to attend the private schools and academies of the Whites, while a few other Negroes, as favorite servants of congressmen, had been exposed to the rudiments of learning. The acquisition of an education under such conditions, however, was at best, limited, and so the great majority of Negroes could neither read nor write. Opportunities for obtaining even a small bit of education were irregular and a matter of fortuitous circumstance, because no definite system designed to provide mass training for Negroes had been devised. It is quite significant to note that the first school built for the express purpose of educating Negro children in the District of Columbia was erected by three ex-slaves, George Bell,, Nicholas Franklin and Moses Liverpool. This school house was a one-story frame, erected in 1807 when the Negro population consisted of less than 1,500 persons as follows: