Education in 1800's Rural Virginia
Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail
Before and during the Civil War, educational opportunities in Rural Virginia were often limited. The wealthier families employed a tutor or sent their children to boarding academies such as the nearby Union Academy. In such schools students learned a variety of subjects including history, mathematics, chemistry, and foreign languages. For less fortunate white children prior to the 1860's, there were 19 small, mostly one-room schoolhouses scattered throughout the county. African-American children had even fewer educational prospects.
Here on April 9, 1865, two brigades of United States Colored Troops advanced east along the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road, ensuring the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate army and the end of the Civil War. This brought about the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865. Before that time it was illegal to teach a slave to read. The first educational opportunities for blacks in Appomattox County came about through the Freedman's Bureau, created by Congress to assist former slaves. From 1866 to 1869. Plymouth Rock, a school for freedmen, operated near the Courthouse. However, funding was erratic for African-American schools, causing educational prospects for blacks to remain scarce in the years following the Civil War. It was not until 1870-1871 that Virginia made funds available for public education for persons of all races, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of both white and black children who attended school. It would be nearly another hundred years though, until the gap between educational opportunities for the two races would finally be closed.
Courtesy hmdb.org
