"Our Future is in Our Own Hands:" Black Educational Activism in Tennessee, 1865-1890

Abstract

In the wake of Emancipation, freedpeople across the South declared certain imperatives that they believed would legitimize their separation from slavery and prepare them for their imminent status as citizens of the United States of America. One of those imperatives was access to an equal and adequate education, and black folks came out of slavery ready to fight and advocate for that access. Gaining this educational access would not be inevitable in former Confederate states, as highly partisan political environments and physical violence inflicted by white Southerners not yet ready to let go of the pre-War status quo made black progress difficult. With these conditions as a backdrop, this thesis examines black educational activism in from 1865 to 1890, using the state of Tennessee as a case study. Specifically, it stresses the importance of black educational activism in the evolution of black politicking after slavery. Moreover, this thesis describes black educational activism as freedpeople’s method of both understanding the meaning of citizenship and acting that citizenship out.