African Americans: The Freedmen's Bureau

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In 1619, a Dutch ship transported twenty African laborers ashore at the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. With all ties cut off from their native land, Africans were no longer able to organize to defend themselves; by 1655 slavery was legalized, unknowingly bounding Africans to strenuous work for nearly 245 years. By 1700, African slaves were approximately ten percent of the population throughout British North America. Since the African slaves were cheaper to inhabit, they were used to work on the tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations of the Southern coast. Most of the slaves resided on large farms or small plantations consisting of fifty or less slaves. While there, their masters sought to make them completely dependent on them; governing …show more content…
The Freedmen’s Bureau provided relief for all citizens in war-torn areas, found jobs for freed slaves and helped them negotiate contracts with their employers, educated former slaves, managed abandoned and confiscated property, and attempted to secure justice for all blacks. The Freedmen’s Bureau was exceedingly fundamental to former slaves because it provided education, which was vital to helping them find jobs and protect themselves against any injustices. The organization operated more than 1,700 schools, with a total attendance of over 100,000 students. Sadly, by 1870, many of the education offices had closed, and in March 1871 the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased all of its activities. Blacks, still hungry for knowledge and self-betterment, continued to attend public schools that were open in their favor. Although in their favor, they were not in the best condition. The black’s public schools depended on the white-controlled state government for funding; the very government that did not want to see blacks become educated in fear of them challenging the white’s supremacy. Therefore, these schools received significantly less than white schools did in financial support, learning materials, teacher salaries, and the conditions of their learning environment. Now equal but separate, blacks had to fight for their right to a decent education. In Topeka, Kansas in 1951, a group of African American parents, organized and supported by their local NAACP, filed a class-action lawsuit against their local school board demanding desegregation of Topeka schools. The issue at the time was the fact that their children often had to travel far distances to attend the all-black schools, when all-white schools sat only blocks away from their homes. When the parents tried to enroll their children into closer schools, those holding
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