Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/226

214 freedmen some measure of self-protecting power in the form of suffrage, is to make it a consideration precedent to ‘readmission’.”

During 1866, the Freedmen’s Bureau received over a million dollars mostly from the Freedmen’s fund, sales of crop, rent of lands and buildings and school taxes. The chief expenditure was in wages, rent and schools. It was evident that the Negro was demanding education. Schools arose immediately among the refugees and Negro soldiers. They were helped by voluntary taxation of the Negroes and then by the activity of Northern religious bodies. Seldom in the history of the world has an almost totally illiterate population been given the means of self-education in so short a time. The movement started with the Negroes themselves and they continued to form the dynamic force behind it. “This great multitude arose up simultaneously and asked for intelligence.” There can be no doubt that these schools were a great conservative steadying force to which the South owes much. It must not be forgotten that among the agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau were not only soldiers and politicians but school teachers and educational leaders like Ware and Cravath.