SR_DPI_DNE_Special_Subject_File_B1F15_Equalization_Education_Opportunities_001

BRIEF
NORTH CAROLINA MOVES POSITIVELY TOWARD EQUALITY IN PUBLIC EDUCATION AS BETWEEN WHITE AND COLORED PEOPLE.
I. Historical Background.
When the War of 1861-1865 ended, North Carolina, like her Southern neighbors, was prostrate, economically and politically. To make matters worse, the visitors in the four-year long conflict, organized and executed a ten-year program of REconstruction, which came near to destroying the measure asssts which the state had when the war closed. However, in 1875 when REconstruction ended, the people of the state began to look about them ant to make plans for improving conditions. One of the topics to claim earliest attention was that of public education. A state constitution had been adopted in 1866. In this document no statement had been made about separate schools for white and colored children.
In the meantime, between 1`865 and 1875, there had been some so-called "mixed schools" in some of the states, but none in North CArolina. In 1876, at the regular election in November, the voters adopted an amendment to the constitution which is as follows: "The children of the white race and the children of the colored race shall be taught in separate publiv schools, but there shall be no discrimination in favor of or to the prejudice of either race." This law has controlled school attendance as indicated in the law since 1877, when the amendment was confirmed ny the General Assembly of that year.
The question at this time is: How well and how faithfull has the state of North Carolina complied with its own constitution in the section quoted above? In this brief there is not and will not be any attempt to evade this issue.
It may not be out of place to say that the writer of htis statement was torn in the midst of REconstruction, December 27, 1871. In his own lifetime he has witnessed and had a small opart in the actions of the state in the field of public education. With his father's family and neighbors he lived through the lean years of the 1870's, the 1880's, and the 1890's. He knew of the scarcity which existed everywhere; of the actual want which faced people of both races. His first experience as a teacher was in a remote section of a far eastern county, where the school term was three months, and the salary twenty-five dollars a month.
This brief sketch will indicate to some slight degree the very belated conditions which existed throughout most of the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century in North Carolina. With the turn of the century somewhat brighter prospects encouraged the people of the state to hope for and to expect improvements in public education.
II. Equalization of educational opportunities in North Carolina.
Obviously, some of the depressing conditions which existed throughout the last third of the nineteenth century ni North CArolina spilled over into the new century. These continued though for a decade or two. However, under the leadership of Governor Charles B. Aycock, Superintendent of Public Instruction J. Y. Joyner, Walter H. Page, President Edwin A. Alderman, Josephus Daniels, and many others, a marked stimulus and