1789: Massachusetts Education Act requires towns with at least 200 families to provide elementary schools

The early beginnings of public education in Massachusetts. In the act there was no mention of segregation. Black children were both enrolled in public and private school in the early 19^th-century. To protect their children from prejudice, a group of 36 Bostonian African-Americans asked for a separate school system for black children in 1800.

1800-1835

Laws passed in southern states making it illegal to teach blacks.

1806: The African school opens

Boston School Committee opens a segregated school. Initially, it is both funded by public funds and local philanthropists. In 1812, the committee incorporates the school into jurisdiction, giving the school, annually $200. An interesting aspect of this, is that there is no segregation de jure, that is, by law.

1815: Abiel Smith dies; leaves money.

1820s - 1855

Complaints about Smith School. It had fewer teachers than other schools in Boston. $200 was half of what other schools got. Poor heat, ventilation, bathroom facilities, and lack of supplies. Complaints about headmaster, Abner Forbes: cruel, excessive, and he entertained “opinions of the intellectual character of the colored race of people, that disqualify him to be a teacher of colored children.”

1833: Boston subcommittee reports quality of African-American schools in Boston, both in education and condition of the buildings, is inferior to other schools

Report argued because African-Americans paid taxes, which funded both white and black schools, they deserved a fairer share of the city’s income.

1840-1850: Desegregation

Integration successful in Salem and Nantucket

1849: Roberts v. Massachusetts: Benjamin Roberts sues the state because his African-American daughter is denied from four “white” schools in Boston; loses case; argument becomes basis for Plessy v. Fergusson in 1896

Charles Sumner and Robert Morris argued 1) that according to the state constitution, men were born free and equal before law, 2) could not interpret statements from legislature as exclusionary based on color or race, 3) attacked concept of social and racial caste, 4) argued against the idea of separate but equal.

To show support, the Smith School was boycotted.

Counterpoint: The Boston School Committee had been given “general superintendence” over schools, which allowed them to “arrange, classify, and distribute pupils in such a manner as they think best.”

1849: Petition of Sundry Colored Persons and Report of the Minority of the Committee call for the abolition of the Smith School

1855: Governor Henry Gardner signs bill into law; law states, “In determining the qualifications of scholars to be admitted into any public school, or any district school in this Commonwealth, no distinction shall be made on account of race, color, or religious opinions of the applicant or scholar.”

1855: Smith School is closed