Education & Reconstruction in the Washington DC Region

At the dedication for a school for African American students in Manassas, Virginia, in 1894, Frederick Douglass said: “no greater benefit can be bestowed upon a long benighted people, than giving to them, as we are here earnestly this day endeavoring to do, the means of an education.” In the Reconstruction Era, throughout the South, and especially in the Washington, DC, region, formerly enslaved people fought for educational opportunities. Even as other advances of Reconstruction were clawed back by the forces of white supremacy by the late 19th century, much of the educational progress remained, so that Douglass in 1894 could still see “encouraging signs in the moral skies.” I’m joined in this episode by my son Teddy as co-host and by Dr. Kate Masur , the Board of Visitors Professor of History at Northwestern University and author of Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region . Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag , composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “ I Want to Be Ready ,” performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and recorded in New York City on December 22, 192…