Q. I need information on pre-civil war African American education

Here are some resources accessible through College of the Mainland Library, available to COM students, staff, and faculty:

Books:

• Education of Former Slaves: Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World (2007)
• Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (2005)​
• Great Events from History: African American History: Education (2017)
• 'When I Can Read My Title Clear': Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South (1991) 

Articles: 

• Learning in Spite of Opposition: African Americans and their History of Educational Exclusion in Antebellum America
• "We Slipped and Learned to Read:" Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process, 1830-1865
• Slaves and Education: Tennessee as a Slave State Where the Instruction of Slaves Was Not Prohibited

There are a number of free and open-access resources available on this topic including:

• The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War (1919)
• Beginnings of Black Education: Virginia Museum of History and Culture
• The Antebellum "Talented Thousandth": Black College Students at Oberlin Before the Civil War (1983)

For more information about events during the antebellum period, the Civil War, and related to African American history and education, see these related libguides:

• African American History
• American History 1860-1877, Civil War & Reconstruction
• Civil Rights Movement
• Education Reform