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African American Negro Education

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Booker T. Washington was an emancipated slave in the deep south during the Reconstruction era of America. He was well educated and well-spoken with promising views for the future. His vision for the future was to give African Americans a chance at an education in trade jobs. He made his vision a reality in 1881 when he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Providing African Americans with an opportunity at an education would drastically change the economy in the south and would empower the civil rights movement. This was important because even though the African American slaves of the south had been freed, they had still been facing severe segregation and discrimination from whites. Many were uneducated and unable to find work, and …show more content…
The report had stated that “It is generally recognized that the pure blood American negro is inferior to our white population in mental capacity. . . The cranial cavity of the negro is smaller than the white; his brain weighing 35 ounces contrasted with 45 for the white.” In addition to their mental capacity they had also believed that, “On account of the inherent weaknesses in negro character, especially general lack of intelligence and initiative, it requires much longer time of preliminary training to bring a negro organization up to the point of training where it is fit for combat, than it does in the case of white men. All theoretical training is beyond the grasp of the negro—it must be intensely practical, supplemented by plain talks explaining the reasons for things in simple terms. . .” These accusations of the intelligence of African American’s were only two statements of several that were composed to attempt the United States Army to not allow blacks to gain more equal rights in the military i.e. future wars. Following the report almost 15 years later… in 1939, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) started to focus on gaining the rights of the African Americans in the war. African Americans had served in all wars prior but did not have the ability to rank up in the military or fight alongside whites due to the existing segregation. They were only allowed to work in the army or navy and were not allowed to participate in combat training. Blacks were also instructed only by whites because whites were the only people able to “keep them in

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