During the 1870s and 1880s the majority of African Americans were still living in the South. By 1877, when the last remaining federal troops were withdrawn to end the Reconstruction period officially, the rudiments of the public education system in the South had been established with traditions that kept it segregated for nearly a century. The principle of universal education, which had been written into Reconstruction-era state constitutions, survived when southern whites returned to power, but everywhere in the South the laws were changed to provide that the races be educated separately. The separation of races had been fostered by the philanthropic organizations that had assumed primary responsibility for educational efforts. The Peabody Fund, for example, which began helping both blacks and whites as early as 1867, had benefactors whose position was that separate schools for the races were desirable. Most blacks were...