Education was not always an opportunity for African American students. Elizabeth Ihle, an author, reported that "until relatively recently in our history, the most widespread schooling for any group was elementary schooling" and "for the first four decades after the Civil War, a black person with just three or four years for formal schooling was considered educated..."(pg. 159). The idea of Blacks going to school and becoming equally educated as whites was considered a taboo. In so, to stop Black students from obtaining the education needed to move up in society, only 64 public schools were established during 1900-915 in the South, whereas over 1200 public schools were established for white students. In rural areas, where most of Blacks lived, education opportunities were limited but in the cites, literacy development was more accepted.
In the 19th century, Blacks "hungered for knowledge" (pg. 161) in order to better themselves and their community. In order to build each other, they would assist each other in reaching their literary success. In this effort of becoming literate, "a sense of self-in-society traditional patterns of belief and action" (pg. 161) arose. These people became the pioneers of some of African Americans' traditions, such as using "language and literacy to meet expressive and transactional needs" (pg. 161). Therefore, even though school education was not obtained, Blacks found other routes to still become knowledgeable.
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