ABSTRACT
Africans in America were legally ensnared in the barbaric and peculiar institution of slavery for 246 years: 1619–1865. The legally sanctioned imprisonment of this group was driven largely by economic forces that viewed them as sub-human dark skinned people from the dark continent who were exploitable commodities valuable only as components within the development of both the American and global economies. Despite state laws aimed at preventing the education of Blacks in the South and the North's tactics of violence and intimidation, there were some relatively successful attempts at educating America's second class citizens during the pre-Civil War era. In 1918 Luther L. Bernard examined the course offerings of numerous Black and White colleges in an attempt to measure the amount of time devoted to study in sociology as compared to other disciplines. He discovered that history and political science were the most popular courses at predominately White institutions (PWIs).
