I read the section 2 of chapter 8 from our U.S. History book. The forms of education, demands for the expansion and promotion of education, and insightful leaders who dealt with the public’s education were discussed.Back in the old days, very few people ever really attended school, and those who did studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. Between 1865 and 1895, states passed laws that required 12 to 16 weeks of school attendance every year by children from ages 8-14. Because of the strict rules, and severe physical punishment, many, if not all, children dreaded school.Before long, the idea for kindergartens came into existence for families with employed mothers. The idea quickly spread and successfully got children of a lower age to attend school. Although the number of school-goers was rapidly increasing, the majority of African Americans who attended school were dismally low. By 1910, only 3% of the nation’s African American population between the ages of 15 and 19 went to high school.Even with the drastic increase in high school attendees, only 2.3% of Americans attended college between 1865 and 1900. Eventually the country realized that we were in major need of technological, mathematical, and scientific advancement. Colleges that specialized in specific areas of education such as health care, and engineering were created. By 1900 however, of the 9 million African Americans in the country, only 3880 went to college or other professional schools. Booker T. Washington was a very prominent and reverend African American educator decided to take action against the heavy segregation against African Americans, when immigrants fresh from other countries were getting many rights even over blacks who had been born and raised in America.His idea was to gradually but surely train all African Americans in useful skills and trades so that the white population would have no choice but to accept the black peoples’ newfound and useful skills. W.E.B. Du Bois, the first African American to receive a doctorate in from Harvard favored a more direct form of action. In 1905 Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement. The Niagara Movement was a group of men that eventually became disbanded due to poor funding and internal dissention.The Niagara Movement issued a Declaration of Principles which called for action in the promotion of Civil Rights for All. First and foremost was the call of equal suffrage for women. It also called for the desegregation and equal rights for the legal court system, and jurors. The D.O.P. sought equality in the workforce as well. They challenged employers to offer Negroes lifetime employment. They also demanded equal rights for blacks who had served in the military to be able to collect pension for their services, and for African Americans to be able to attend private military academies. Last but not least, the Declaration of Principles stated that segregation in schools, the workforce, and everywhere else was intolerable and unconstitutional.It must have been very hard to have to fight for your rights during those troubling and harsh times. I am glad that segregation is no longer in action these days, although I very strongly believe that Affirmative Action has run its course of usefulness long ago, and that it is actually a hindrance these days, as well as a form of reverse discrimination.
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