The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

The adverse circumstances to which Woodson refers occurred during the antebellum period, from the beginning of slavery to the Civil War. In this work he chronicles the educational endeavors of Africans in America during this timeframe. He does so with the hope of "narrating in brief how benevolent teachers of both races strove to give antebellum Negroes the education through which many of them gained freedom in its highest and best sense.