Unit
Years: 1830-1850
Freedom & Equal Rights
Historical Events, Movements, and Figures
A community of free African American people had begun to grow and flourish in Boston in the early 1800s, fueled by Massachusetts’ abolition of slavery in 1783. At the same time, the early to mid-1800s brought with it many efforts to improve life for all Americans, including efforts to provide free public schools, known as the Common School Movement. Led by Horace Mann, secretary of the newly founded Massachusetts Board of Education, the focus was on ensuring ethical and democratic participation in society.
African Americans, free and enslaved, had long recognized that literacy, freedom and equality were closely tied together. The Common School movement in Massachusetts now raised their hopes for educational opportunity. Free Black people knew, and began to argue, that as tax paying citizens, it was the right of their children to access quality public education.
By 1840, Boston had a thriving public school system. The Boston School District operated a two-tiered system of schooling that placed White students in neighborhood schools across the city and Black students in one school–the Abiel Smith School. Though this school had begun with private funding, the Abiel Smith School was officially established in 1835 as the first public school for Black children in the country.
However, by the 1840s, many questions about the quality of education provided to children at the Smith School were raised by parents. Often, schools with better outcomes and resources were closer to where a Black family lived, but their children were categorically excluded based on race. In 1848, recognizing the inequality at play, an African American writer and printer, Benjamin Franklin Roberts, chose to challenge this barrier. He attempted multiple times to enroll his daughter Sarah in one of the White neighborhood schools which were closer to their home.
Each time, the school committee rejected his requests and assigned his daughter to the Smith School. Frustrated with the injustice of having to watch his children travel across the city to attend a lower-quality school, Roberts filed a lawsuit against the city of Boston. The case of Sarah Roberts vs. the City of Boston cited that this policy of segregation violated the Massachusetts Constitution.
Judge Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, disagreed with the Roberts family. He sided with the Boston school committee, asserting that no law had been broken because Black students did have access to public education, the city was simply providing a separate environment for their access. This ruling set the precedent for the “separate, but equal” argument upholding racial segregation in countless cases for the next 100 years following the Roberts v. City of Boston ruling.
Going forward, the Black community and abolitionist allies continued to agitate for educational equality, but with a more limited set of strategies available. It was not until the US Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that the legal underpinnings of racial segregation began to unravel, opening a legal path toward educational equality.
Anti-Slavery Almanacs
According to the American Antiquarian Society, almanacs dating from as early as 1656 were abundant and essential pieces of literature in colonial households. When books were a luxury, almanacs provided information for farmers and navigators as well as advice for living. Today the one that is best-known is Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. Less familiar is the work of Benjamin Banneker, a free man of color. Banneker, a resident of Maryland, published and sold his annual almanac from 1792-1797. His work contradicted widespread opinion of the time that Africans were intellectually inferior to whites.
During the 19th century abolitionists published antislavery almanacs to inform Americans about the horrors of slavery. Almanacs typically included thirteen woodcuts, one for each month and the cover. Each image informed readers about the experiences of enslaved people as well as the dangers and discrimination that free people of color faced. The woodcut, featured in this lesson, focused its attention on incidents of educational discrimination against black children; the caption below the image revealed the almanac’s anti-colonizationist stance (an opposition to African resettlement that was widespread though not universal in the African American community in this period).
Letter to the Editor “School for Young Ladies,” The Liberator, October 15, 1841
Mr. Editor,
It has long been a source of regret to many residents of this city that there has been no opportunity afforded, through the medium of which their daughters could obtain a knowledge of those branches deemed so necessary to the completion of a young lady’s education. The baneful prejudice in active exercise against a large number of our citizens, merely because of complexional difference, has presented a barrier which has shut them out of from those facilities so richly enjoyed by the more favored classes.
But it is our pleasure to inform your readers, that a school has lately been opened in this city by Miss Susannah Bradshaw (a colored young lady,) where the accomplished branches are taught. Judging from the exercises to which we have listened, and the specimens of painting, sketching, rug-work, &c together with penmanship, composition, etc., with an examination of which we were favored, we feel justified in recommending the school to the attention of the public.
The terms are favorable and will be made known on application to the preceptress, at the school room in the basement story of the Baptist Church, Belknap Street.
Document 3.7.5
The opinion was delivered at the March term, 1850.
Shaw, C.J. The plaintiff, a colored child of five years of age, has commenced this action, by her father and next friend, against the city of Boston, upon the statute of 1845, c. 214, which provides, that any child unlawfully excluded from public school instruction, in this commonwealth, shall recover damages therefor, in an action against the city or town, by which such public school instruction is supported. The question therefore is, whether, upon the facts agreed, the plaintiff has been unlawfully excluded from such instruction.
The plaintiff had access to a school, set apart for colored children, as well conducted in all respects, and as well fitted, in point of capacity and qualification of the instructors, to advance the education of children under seven years old, as the other primary schools; the objection is, that the schools thus open to the plaintiff are exclusively appropriated to colored children, and are at a greater distance from her home. Under these circumstances, has the plaintiff been unlawfully excluded from public school instruction? Upon the best consideration we have been able to give the subject, the court are all of opinion that she has not.
It will be considered, that this is a question of power, or of the legal authority of the committee intrusted by the city with this department of public instruction; because, if they have the legal authority, the expediency of exercising it in any particular way is exclusively with them.
The great principle, advanced by the learned and eloquent advocate of the plaintiff, is, that by the constitution and laws of Massachusetts, all persons without distinction of age or sex, birth or color, origin or condition, are equal before the law.
But, when this great principle come to be applied to the actual and various conditions of persons in society, it will not warrant the assertion, that men and women are legally clothed with the same civil and political powers, and that children and adults are legally to have the same functions and be subject to the same treatment; but only that the rights of all, as they are settled and regulated by law, are equally entitled to the paternal consideration and protection of the law, for their maintenance and security.
Conceding, therefore, in the fullest manner, that colored persons, the descendants of Africans, are entitled by law, in this commonwealth, to equal rights, constitutional and political, civil and social, the question then arises, whether the regulation in question, which provides separate schools for colored children, is a violation of any of these rights.
The power of general superintendence vests a plenary authority in the committee to arrange, classify, and distribute pupils, in such a manner as they think best adapted to their general proficiency and welfare.
The committee, apparently upon great deliberation, have come to the conclusion, that the good of both classes of schools will be best promoted, by maintaining the separate primary schools for colored and for white children, and we can perceive no ground to doubt, that this is the honest result of their experience and judgement.
It is urged, that this maintenance of separate schools tends to deepen and perpetuate the odious distinction of caste, founded in a deep-rooted prejudice in public opinion. This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law. Whether this distinction and prejudice, existing in the opinion and feelings of the community, would not be as effectually fostered by compelling colored and white children to associate together in the same schools, may well be doubted; at all events, it is a fair and proper question for the committee to consider and decide upon, having in view the best interests of both classes of children placed under their superintendence, and we cannot say, that their decision upon it is not founded on just grounds of reason and experience, and in the results of a discriminating and honest judgement.
The increased distance, to which the plaintiff was obliged to go to school from her father’s house, is not such, in our opinion, as to render the regulation in question unreasonable, still less illegal.
On the whole the court are of opinion, that upon the facts stated, the action cannot be maintained.
Plaintiff nonsuit.
(Document 3.7.11)
Letter to the Editor “School for Young Ladies,” The Liberator, October 15, 1841
Mr. Editor,
It has long been a source of regret to many residents of this city that there has been no opportunity afforded, through the medium of which their daughters could obtain a knowledge of those branches deemed so necessary to the completion of a young lady’s education. The baneful prejudice in active exercise against a large number of our citizens, merely because of complexional difference, has presented a barrier which has shut them out of from those facilities so richly enjoyed by the more favored classes.
But it is our pleasure to inform your readers, that a school has lately been opened in this city by Miss Susannah Bradshaw (a colored young lady,) where the accomplished branches are taught. Judging from the exercises to which we have listened, and the specimens of painting, sketching, rug-work, &c together with penmanship, composition, etc., with an examination of which we were favored, we feel justified in recommending the school to the attention of the public.
The terms are favorable and will be made known on application to the preceptress, at the school room in the basement story of the Baptist Church, Belknap Street.
Document 3.7.5
The opinion was delivered at the March term, 1850.
Shaw, C.J. The plaintiff, a colored child of five years of age, has commenced this action, by her father and next friend, against the city of Boston, upon the statute of 1845, c. 214, which provides, that any child unlawfully excluded from public school instruction, in this commonwealth, shall recover damages therefor, in an action against the city or town, by which such public school instruction is supported. The question therefore is, whether, upon the facts agreed, the plaintiff has been unlawfully excluded from such instruction.
The plaintiff had access to a school, set apart for colored children, as well conducted in all respects, and as well fitted, in point of capacity and qualification of the instructors, to advance the education of children under seven years old, as the other primary schools; the objection is, that the schools thus open to the plaintiff are exclusively appropriated to colored children, and are at a greater distance from her home. Under these circumstances, has the plaintiff been unlawfully excluded from public school instruction? Upon the best consideration we have been able to give the subject, the court are all of opinion that she has not.
It will be considered, that this is a question of power, or of the legal authority of the committee intrusted by the city with this department of public instruction; because, if they have the legal authority, the expediency of exercising it in any particular way is exclusively with them.
The great principle, advanced by the learned and eloquent advocate of the plaintiff, is, that by the constitution and laws of Massachusetts, all persons without distinction of age or sex, birth or color, origin or condition, are equal before the law.
But, when this great principle come to be applied to the actual and various conditions of persons in society, it will not warrant the assertion, that men and women are legally clothed with the same civil and political powers, and that children and adults are legally to have the same functions and be subject to the same treatment; but only that the rights of all, as they are settled and regulated by law, are equally entitled to the paternal consideration and protection of the law, for their maintenance and security.
Conceding, therefore, in the fullest manner, that colored persons, the descendants of Africans, are entitled by law, in this commonwealth, to equal rights, constitutional and political, civil and social, the question then arises, whether the regulation in question, which provides separate schools for colored children, is a violation of any of these rights.
The power of general superintendence vests a plenary authority in the committee to arrange, classify, and distribute pupils, in such a manner as they think best adapted to their general proficiency and welfare.
The committee, apparently upon great deliberation, have come to the conclusion, that the good of both classes of schools will be best promoted, by maintaining the separate primary schools for colored and for white children, and we can perceive no ground to doubt, that this is the honest result of their experience and judgement.
It is urged, that this maintenance of separate schools tends to deepen and perpetuate the odious distinction of caste, founded in a deep-rooted prejudice in public opinion. This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law. Whether this distinction and prejudice, existing in the opinion and feelings of the community, would not be as effectually fostered by compelling colored and white children to associate together in the same schools, may well be doubted; at all events, it is a fair and proper question for the committee to consider and decide upon, having in view the best interests of both classes of children placed under their superintendence, and we cannot say, that their decision upon it is not founded on just grounds of reason and experience, and in the results of a discriminating and honest judgement.
The increased distance, to which the plaintiff was obliged to go to school from her father’s house, is not such, in our opinion, as to render the regulation in question unreasonable, still less illegal.
On the whole the court are of opinion, that upon the facts stated, the action cannot be maintained.
Plaintiff nonsuit.
(Document 3.7.11)
A publication containing weather forecasts, astronomical information, tide tables, and other miscellaneous data, often published annually.
A person who provides financial or other assistance to support a cause, organization, or individual.
A coordinated refusal to buy, use, or participate in something as a form of protest or pressure, often to achieve social, political, or economic goals.
A person who works to effect positive social change and improve the lives of others.
The active involvement of citizens in the democratic process, including voting, political engagement, and participation in public affairs and decision-making.
Characterized by the inclusion or incorporation of diverse or different elements, groups, or individuals into a unified whole, often used to describe processes or systems that promote equality, diversity, and cooperation among people of different backgrounds or identities.
A formal written request or appeal addressed to a person or authority, often signed by multiple individuals or groups, and seeking action, redress, or relief on a particular issue, grievance, or concern, typically submitted with supporting evidence, arguments, or proposals, and used as a means of initiating legal proceedings, influencing policy decisions, or obtaining official responses.
Individuals or groups who submit a petition, formal written request, or appeal to a person or authority, often seeking action, redress, or relief on a particular issue, grievance, or concern, and typically signed by multiple individuals or representatives, and accompanied by supporting evidence, arguments, or proposals. Petitioners may include plaintiffs in legal cases, citizens lobbying for legislative changes, or activists advocating for social reforms.
A party initiating a legal action or lawsuit in a court of law, typically seeking redress, damages, or enforcement of rights or obligations against another party known as the defendant, and responsible for presenting evidence, arguments, and claims in support of their case, under the guidance of legal counsel or representation. Plaintiffs may include individuals, organizations, or entities alleging harm, injury, or violation of legal rights.
A legal principle, rule, or decision established by a court or authoritative body in a previous case or legal proceeding, and serving as a model or guide for subsequent cases with similar facts or issues, based on the principle of stare decisis, or the doctrine of following precedent. Precedents provide a basis for consistency, predictability, and fairness in the application of law, and help ensure uniformity and coherence in the legal system.
Segregated refers to the enforced separation of different racial, ethnic, or religious groups, typically in public facilities, schools, housing, and transportation, as was common during the era of racial segregation in the United States.
A statue is a sculpture, typically representing a person, animal, or abstract form, created to commemorate an individual, event, or concept. Statues are often placed in public spaces as monuments or memorials.
In legal terms, a suit refers to a civil action or lawsuit brought before a court of law to resolve a dispute or claim between parties, typically seeking damages, compensation, or other legal remedies for perceived injuries or violations.