Previously enslaved African Americans believed education was essential to achieving equality and wealth. Despite the problems that poverty and racism placed in their paths, they found a way.
Black church schools, the only safe and accessible option for Black children in many communities, provided a safe space to receive primary education, learn reading, writing, and arithmetic and develop the skills necessary for the future.
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Well into the latter 20th Century, America was agricultural, and education was often secondary to farm labor. This was especially acute for Black families who were sharecroppers for white landowners.
According to James McLauchlin, a retired educator, and past Cumberland County School board member, during the early 1900s, the highest education accessible to many African Americans in Cumberland County outside of Fayetteville was the seventh grade. The Jim Crow period of racial oppression was a real threat to African Americans on many levels.