When was the first African american school created?

Question

I'm writing a story that takes place sometime in the 1870's but the main character who is black goes to school and I need and accurate date when the the first school was created.thanx in advance.

Answer 1

The first African American school was created in 1717 by Reverend Cotton Mather of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Mather also played a huge role in another famous historic event, the Salem Witch Trials. There were schools in the North opened up all the time in the 1700's at one time in a school in NYC in the 1700's there was an enrollment of over 500 African American students. In the South the first major school for African Americans was the Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T Washington in 1881.  

Answer 2

You really did need her response because saying you're writing a story but not doing any of the research is below the line

Answer 3

Why would you write historical fiction if you can't even get facts straight?

Anyway, is it a high school or college?

1837 for college

Answer 4

Soon after becoming pastor at First Baptist Church in 1827, former slave John Berry Meachum started a school for African-American children. He soon closed it under great pressure from local authorities who accused him of stirring up trouble by teaching blacks "reading, writing, and figuring." Five more schools cropped up by the 1840s, all in churches-at Chambers Street Baptist at 10th and Chambers, First African Baptist at 3rd and Market, St. Paul's AME at 7th and Washington, and Second Colored Baptist (later Central Baptist) near 3rd and Franklin. Fr. Augustin Paris organized a school for black Catholic girls at 3rd and Poplar in 1845, mostly for daughters of free blacks. It closed in 1846 "under pressure of civil authorities."

Missouri law banned teaching African-Americans to read and write starting in 1847, growing largely out of fears by slave owners that an educated black population would be a rebellious one. However, the Mississippi River was considered beyond state jurisdiction, governed by federal law only-and beyond the reach of the school ban. John Berry Meachum created a new school on a barge in the Mississippi River. Skiffs carried students each day to the barge where they took classes, then returned at night without ever technically breaking the law.

During the Civil War, with St. Louis under Union control, pro-northern leaders had greater latitude. Unitarian minister William Greenleaf Eliot and businessman James Yeatman created the "American Freedom School" at the old Ebenezer Church site on Washington Avenue in 1863 to teach fugitive and recently freed slaves the three R's. Two days later, the building mysteriously burned, but the school continued in different quarters.

At the end of the Civil War, Missouri enacted a new state constitution. Passed in January of 1865, provisions included a ban on slavery and a requirement that all school boards support education for African-Americans. When the academic year started, St. Louis had five schools for blacks with 1,600 pupils administered by a Board of Education for Colored Schools. At first, it rented sites for schools, so they moved frequently in the early years. Twelve schools for African-American children opened their doors at the start of the 1875 school year, including two-year-old Colored School No. 8, later named Simmons School.