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7-9 grade discussion questions:

1.  What did travel look like for newly freed people? See: Convention of Alabama Negroes, 1865 
2. What is the history of your nearest HBCU? Who founded it and when? Were there Black teachers from the beginning? Were there women teachers? Women students? 
3. What is a challenge you see for education today? If you were at a convention, what would your proposal be?

10-12 grade discussion questions:

1. How did educational laws for Black people change after the Civil War in your state?
2. How can these institutions do better in including Black founders in their histories?
3. What’s the percentage of Black students at the colleges closest to you? At schools you’re interested in attending? What’s the Black population in the state?
4. If you were a delegate at a convention, what kinds of educational proposals would you and your classmates want to debate and submit? In other words, what educational issues are most important to you right now?

Undergraduate discussion questions:

1.  What surprises you when looking through an early college catalog? See: FAMU: The Founding Years
2. (HBCU students) Where is your institution’s history on campus? Do you know the names and histories of any of its Black founders? Is it possible they attended Colored Conventions?
3. Using the Colored Conventions Project, can you find discussions of education in convention documents of your home state?
4. If you were a delegate at a convention, what kinds of educational proposals would you and your classmates  submit? What would you imagine the internal debate would be about those proposals? How would you try to convince legistlators to enact your proposals?

References

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Credits

Written by: Rachel Nelson for ENGL/HIST 677, taught by P. Gabrielle Foreman, University of Delaware, Spring 2019.

Edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman.

Acknowledgements: Samantha de Vera and Michelle Byrnes for further edits, visualization contributions, and technical assistance.