Antislavery Activism in Lowell
Document 38

The Liberator

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

House of Representatives, March 17, 1855

The Committee on Education, to whom was referred the Order of the 7th of February, instructing them to inquire into the expediency of additional legislation in regard to the powers of School Committees in determining the number and qualifications of scholars to be admitted into Public or District Schools; and also the Petitions of … asking the Legislature “to provide, by due legislation, some efficient means to prevent the colored children of Boston from being deprived of the equal privileges of the common schools of that city,” have carefully considered the whole subject by the Order and the Petitions, respectfully

REPORT:

   Your Committee have been unable to find, from an examine of the Constitution, statues, or regulations pertaining to schools, any specific authority on the part of superintendents of Committee men to exclude, by reason of color, race, or religious opinions, any portion of children from the State from the benefits of common school education. …

   We doubt not many have been induced to countenance this distinction, and decide for its continuance, from the fear that the admission of colored children into schools with white children would case a popular ferment that would seriously impair the condition of the schools.  Your Committee believe this fear to be unfounded.  The admission of colored children indiscriminately with white children prevails in the schools of Salem, Lowell, Worcester, New Bedford and Nantucket, in several of which places the general feeling respecting colored people in doubtless similar to what it is in Boston. In New Bedford and Lowell, no distinction has ever been made with reference to color; while in Salem, Worcester and Nantucket, the separate schools have comparatively recently been abolished. …