Refusing Ignorance; The Struggle to Educate Black Children in Albany, New York 1816-1873

Refusing Ignorance tells the story of the courageous men and women, both black and white, who struggled to provide an education for black children in Albany, New York. Author Marian I. Hughes traces this inspiring story from 1816, when the state legislature incorporated the "Albany School for Educating People of Color," through 1873, when state civil rights law made the segregated Wilberforce School on Hamilton Street illegal. Readers will meet Benjamin Lattimore, a Revolutionary War veteran who led the movement for black education in Albany; Stephen A. Myers, an outspoken journalist and abolitionist who used his Albany newspaper as a forum for the rights of black children; Arabella Chapman, the first black student to graduate from the Free Academy, now Albany High School; and the trustees of the Albany Lancaster Society, nineteenth-century proponents of equal educational opportunity. Richly illustrated with historic photographs and engravings, Refusing Ignorance draws upon hundreds of documents in Albany archives, including the handwritten minutes of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools. Maps pinpoint the important education sites in Albany. This book will appeal to all those interested in local history, black history, and the history of education.