In the South, Black people were prohibited from receiving an education until after the Civil War. And even among poor whites, the literacy rate was low because there were so few public schools. After the Union victory in the Civil War, there was a grudging willingness to change this.
Education was one of the contributing factors to the Union’s victory in the Civil War, and then became an essential part of the Reconstruction agenda to rebuild the country. Congress proposed an organization under federal control in 1867. President Andrew Johnson reluctantly agreed, based on one assumption.
President Johnson agreed to create the Department of Education, believing that it wouldn’t have much authority, only to appease those calling for its establishment. He privately agreed with the department’s loudest opponents.
Many of these opponents were former Confederates, but others were Northerners. They accused the federal government of interfering in local schools, and that formerly enslaved people didn’t need or deserve an education anyway. As a result of this racist outcry, in 1868 Congress downgraded the Department of Education to an office.
The end of the first U.S. Department of Education illustrates how white supremacy will even deprive white people of a public good in order to harm Black people. We must continue to fight for everything we deserve without settling for anything less.