Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States of America, and author of the Declaration of Independence the document proclaiming independence of thirteen North American colonies from Great Britain was America’s first leader to propose creating a free school system that would offer education to all. He proposed giving high priority toward a “crusade against ignorance.”

In trying to implement his free schools idea, Jefferson presented a plan for free schooling in Virginia laying out the details of how the plan would work. Although support for Jefferson’s plan proved limited and his proposal was never enacted, his ideas to universally fund public education formed the foundation of the education systems, that would finally come to be in the nineteenth century.

Prior to the 1840s Americans were mostly educated on the basis of where they lived, available educatory resources, township or city-wide values, religious activities and teachings regarding education, and the needs of private groups like trade organizations and philanthropic associations who created schools according to whatever their needs were. In addition, wealthy boys were the primary targets for whom institutions provided educations and public governing bodies had little to do with controlling or financing schools.

In effort to unite the disjointed localized education practices in the 1830’s and 1840’s, Educators like Henry Barnard from Connecticut and Horace Mann of Massachusetts set out to provide educational opportunities for all children. They created the common-school movement. In the minds of these founding educators, the word “common” referred to the focus of elementary education, the notion that schooling should be provided for all young children, and educational content should be provided to everyone on an equal basis.

Among other beliefs these pioneering education system reformers shared were the notions that all youth could be transformed into literate citizens, America would be better prepared to compete with other countries if everyone was educated, and common schooling would aid in increasing bonds in the ever growing diverse population of the United States many whites were concerned over the growing immigrant population. Social stability, crime prevention, and poverty could be preserved through education, they contended. They also maintained schools should be publicly funded, and should include laws requiring children to attend school.
Needless to say, the reformers achieved their objective. Public education became available to all by the end of the 19th century; and Massachusetts in 1852, followed by New York in 1853 passed compulsory laws of attendance mandating all school age children must go to school. Eventually, all states came to adopt these principles.

In light of the fact that these education reforms were taking place during the period of African American enslavement in the United States concern over the education for African Americans had yet to be considered. As a result, the conclusion of the Civil War coupled with the emancipation of African American slaves led education to the twentieth century dividing schools along racial lines; and in the south, laws of segregation were in effect to see to it that the conglutinant invisible barriers would remain.

Although state laws were only attached to the majority of Southern schools, and segregative school laws were non existent in the North, rampant Northern school segregation managed to hold its course with the assistance of attendance boundary lines drawn by school districts ensuring blacks and whites would not matriculate in the same school facilities.

Schools for African American students in Northern and Southern states were inferior to the same for white students. Public transportation to the schools where available was insufficient. Monies allotted on a per student basis disbursed to schools attended by African Americans were well below the allotments provided to white schools.

College denial of African American admissions began to falter following the 1950 case, Sweat v. Painter during which the Supreme Court ordered the University of Texas to integrate its law school.

Following the 1954 Supreme Court deciding in Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka that unequal educational opportunities resulted from designating separate school facilities for blacks and for whites; United States public school systems set on a mission to desegregate schools in order to provide all students equal educational opportunities.

Despite the court order, school segregation did not happen over night; and in fact, the court would eventually make several subsequent decisions directed toward individual school districts with the insistence they desegregate immediately. But it wouldn’t be until 1980 that federal courts would finally succeed in stamping out legalized segregation in southern schools.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy coined the phase “Affirmative Action” in an executive order intended to encourage contractors to desegregate their workforces. Educationally speaking, Affirmative Action became synonymous with programs geared at assisting African American students in gaining college access. Together, Affirmative Action programs and school integration efforts provided increased opportunities for African Americans to acquire more potent educations.

Title I also known as Chapter I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 allotted federal funds to supplement educational programs aimed at poor and black children. The bulk of these monies were allotted to programs for the young in attempt to prevent them from becoming excessively educationally disadvantaged. The Head Start program, established by these funds, continues to be recognized as one of the effective “War on Poverty” 1960’s programs.

After centuries of enslavement and decades of freedom fighters putting their lives on the line to gain equal rights for African Americans; milestones leading from a time during which African Americans would be subject to severe punishment or even death simply for holding a book in their hands to a time when all African Americans are presented with opportunities to educate themselves are too mountainous to express.