An interesting fact about post-Civil War education is that, in general, free education for Black students who had access to Freedman's Bureau schools was a much better system than free education available to white students. Of course, wealthy white parents still usually educated their children at home with private tutors, so there was little structural investment in a system of free public schooling for white students. By 1870, there were no formal schools training white teachers in Virginia, but there were two such schools for Black teachers, one in Hampton and one in Richmond. (Bullock, 1967).

During the Civil War itself, since much of Fairfax County was occupied by Union forces, residents began defying the previous prohibition of education of Black residents and even created schools. One such school in Falls Church was associated with an infamous cold-blooded murder of a schoolteacher by Mosby's Rangers.

Contraband Camp schools began to be organized even before the war ended as well, to educate formerly enslaved Virginians who had liberated themselves by fleeing to Union-controlled Army camps. (Robison, 2014)

After the Civil War, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedman's Bureau) and the Friends' Association of Philadelpha (Quakers) begame to open schools in 1865 in Fairfax County. From 1864-1868, 15 such schools were supported by the Freedmen's Bureau in the County. (Robison, 2014). While there was some structural and community support for these schooos, teachers of these schools faced significant community opposition and hostility, from threats to even murder.