This paper describes black education during the Antebellum period and focuses on the efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau, philanthropic organizations, and the church to provide equal educational opportunities for blacks. It is pointed out that, before the Civil War, basic forms of education were provided to a few blacks by black and white ministers, benevolent slave masters, and free blacks. Through review of black educational development after the Civil War, it is shown that the establishment of free schools by the Freedmen's Bureau met with much resistance from whites, and that the only education available to blacks was provided in segregated educational institutions established by churches and philanthropic organizations. It is concluded that racial solidarity and self-help were major factors in the development of public school education for blacks in the South and in the border States. (EB)