The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 / A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War

by Carter Godwin Woodson

BIBLIOGRAPHY

There is no helpful bibliography on the early education of the American Negro. A few books treating the recent problems of education in this country give facts about the enlightenment of the colored people before their general emancipation, but the investigator has to depend on promiscuous sources for adequate information of this kind. With the exception of a survey of the Legal Status of the Colored Population in Respect to Schools and Education in the Different States, published in the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education in 1871, there has been no attempt at a general treatment of this phase of our history. This treatise, however, is too brief to inculcate an appreciation of the extensive efforts to enlighten the ante-bellum Negro.

Considered as a local problem this question has received more attention. A few writers have undertaken to sketch the movement to educate the colored people of certain communities before the Civil War. Their objective point, however, has been rather to treat of later periods. The books mentioned below give some information with respect to the period treated in this monograph.