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According to G. K Chesterson, “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." African Americans were not always allowed to be educated. Though African Americans were always perfectly capable of learning, we just were not able to do so as freely as we can today. These days, not being allowed to learn is the least of our worries. A more common issue would be paying for higher education, or struggling to comprehend in school. But once upon a time, being able to simply read a short story was something that was unheard of to African Americans. During slavery periods, the education of Africans was forbidden. The whites tried to keep the African slaves as ignorant as possible in order to be able to manipulate them to do as they were told and to enable them from finding a way out of their situation.

Later, African Americans were given the opportunity to be educated. But there was still an injustice. Schools were segregated between blacks and whites. One would find that the white schools were much more proficient than the black schools. Giving the white schools better books, better materials, and more educated teachers. Therefore, the opportunity to learn was not yet equal between blacks and whites. African Americans continuously fought for the right to obtain an equal education to whites. In the end, schools were integrated and blacks and whites to this day can sit in any American classroom and learn the same material and pursue the same careers.
Education is the one thing no one could ever take from a human being. If you learn something and commit it to memory, there is no way possible for another person to physically take that from you. Even the enslaved Africans knew this for a fact. The ones who ventured off and learned to read knew that once they were educated, their master could snatch a book, but not the knowledge gained from it. It is imperative that today’s black Americans know this and live by it....