Schools for All: the Blacks and Public Education South, 1865-1877

In an extensive study of records from the period, William Preston Vaughn traces the development—the successes as well as the failures—of the early attempts of the states to promote education for African Americans and in some instances to establish integration. While public schools in the South were not an innovation of Reconstruction, their revitalization and provision to both races were among the most important achievements of the period, despite the pressure from whites in most areas which forced the establishment of segregated education. Despite the ultimate failure to establish an integrated public school system anywhere in the South, many positive achievements were attained. Although the idealism of the political Reconstructionists fell short of its immediate goals in the realm of public education, precedents were established for integrated schools, and the constitutional revisions achieved through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments laid the groundwork for subsequent successful assaults on segregated education.