The early education of the Negro in West Virginia falls in three
periods.[1] During the first period, it was largely restricted to
such efforts as benevolent whites were disposed to make in behalf of
those Negroes who had served them acceptably as slaves. This period,
therefore, antedates the emancipation of the Negroes. Because of the
scarcity of the slave population of Western Virginia, the 14,000
slaves scattered among the mountainous counties came into helpful
contact with their masters, among whom the institution never lost its
patriarchal aspect. Although it was both unlawful and in some parts of
West Virginia unpopular to instruct Negroes, these masters, a law unto
themselves, undertook to impart to these bondmen some modicum of
knowledge. Upon the actual emancipation in 1865, when all restraint in
this respect was abrogated, benevolent white persons, moved with
compassion because of the benighted condition of Negroes, volunteered
to offer them instruction. The first teachers of the Negroes in West
Virginia, then, were white persons. The Negroes of Jefferson,
Greenbrier, Monroe, Summers, Kanawha, Mason, and Wood counties still
point with pride to these white friends, who by their indefatigable
work as teachers blazed the way in a field which to Negroes had been
forbidden.
During the next period there came into these same parts the Union
soldier, followed and sometimes accompanied by the missionary teachers
sent out by the Freedmen's Relief Commissions of the North and by the
Freedmen's Bureau. The efforts of the Union soldier could not be
crowned with signal success for the reason that they were sporadic and
this volunteer was not in every case well prepared for such service.
The greatest impetus was given the cause when missionary teachers
appeared in the State. Having the spirit of sacrifice which
characterized the apostles of old, they endured the hardships
resulting from social proscription and crude environment. With the
funds which they secured from the agencies which they represented and
which they could raise among the poor freedmen and their few
sympathetic white friends, these teachers of the new day built or
rented shanty-like school-houses in which they proclaimed the power of
education as the great leverage by which the recently emancipated race
could toil up to a position of recognition in this republic. The
educational achievements of this class of teachers were significant,
not so much because of the actual instruction given, but rather on
account of the inspiration which set the whole body of Negroes
throughout the State thinking and working to secure to themselves
every facility for education vouchsafed to the most highly favored
element of our population.
The third period in the early education of Negroes in West Virginia
was reached when these pioneer teachers had wrought well enough to
enable the Negroes to help themselves. Because of the rapid
development of this industrial State and the consequent influx of
Negroes from other commonwealths, however, the number of Negro
teachers produced on the ground proved inadequate to the demand for
instructors among the increasing and expanding Negro population of
West Virginia. There went out to the other States the call for help,
which was answered largely by workers from Virginia, Maryland, and
Ohio. Virginia did not have many workers to spare, but from Baltimore,
where, because of the liberal attitude of the whites toward the
education of Negroes prior to the Civil War, a considerable group of
Negroes had been trained, came a much larger number of volunteers.
From Ohio, however, came as many as were obtained from both Virginia
and Maryland, for the reason that, although the Negroes were early
permitted to attend school in Ohio, race prejudice had not
sufficiently diminished to permit them to instruct white persons in
public schools. Looking out for a new field, their eyes quickly fell
on the waiting harvest across the Ohio in West Virginia. Some of these
workers from adjacent States, moreover, served the people not only as
teachers but also as ministers of the gospel. They were largely
instrumental in establishing practically all of the Methodist and
Baptist churches in the State, and while they taught school during the
week, they inspired and edified their congregations on Sunday.
The beginning of the education of the Negroes in West Virginia at
public expense was delayed inasmuch as its first constitution,
although it made provisions for free schools, did not extend the
facilities of the same to the freedmen. In the report of the State
Superintendent of Public Schools in 1864, therefore, he complained
that the Negroes had been too long and too mercilessly deprived of
this privilege. "I regret to report," said he, "that there are not
schools for the children of this portion of our citizens; as the law
stands I fear they will be compelled to remain in ignorance. I commend
them to the favorable notice of the legislature."[2]
In 1866, therefore, the legislature enacted a law providing for the
establishing of public schools for Negroes between the ages of six and
twenty-one years. These schools had to maintain an average attendance
of sixteen pupils or be closed. As Negro communities were not very
large and the number of such children small, some of them scattered
throughout the State were denied the opportunity to acquire an
education. This law, therefore, was amended in 1867 so as to authorize
local boards of education to establish a school whenever there were
more than fifteen Negro children between the ages of six and
twenty-one.[3]
The attitude of the State approved separation of the two races in the
schools, but the first two laws bearing on Negro schools did not make
this point clear. Upon revising the constitution in 1872, therefore,
it was specifically provided that whites and blacks should not be
taught in the same school.[4] Thereafter, however, the whites and
blacks sometimes used the same school-houses. As the term consisted of
only four months of twenty-two school days each, the whites would open
school in September and vacate by Christmas, when the Negroes would
take charge.
No further changes were made in the school law until 1899, when it was
amended to the effect that the trustees in certain districts should
establish one or more primary schools for Negro children between the
ages of six and twenty-one years, and that said members of boards of
education should establish such Negro schools whenever there were at
least ten Negro pupils who resided in their district, and for a
smaller number, if it were possible to do so.[5] This gave impetus to
the movement for more intensive education among Negroes throughout
their communities. Often Negro children in groups of only four or five
were thus trained in the backward districts, where they received
sufficient inspiration to come to larger schools for more systematic
training.