With the overwhelming endorsement of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the election of Abraham Lincoln to a second term in 1863, a foregone conclusion was that the stage was set for the complete elimination of physical slavery. Still in question, however, was what to do with four million newly freed depraved slaves? Clearly, one philosophy held that there was simply no way for Colored and Whites to co-exist as equals in these United States. Another, was that what served other ethnic groups migrating to this country should likewise serve freed Colored people. The American Missionary Association subscribed  to this philosophy of which the substance was EDUCATION. Education not for subordination, rather Freedom and Liberation-for the most deprived - for the fullest development of man and womanhood.    

In Ante-Bellum days, the State of Georgia forbade the teaching of reading and writing to black people. But soon after the Civil War, 1868, the American Missionary Association, now part of   more »