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Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Family Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Church Section 2: Building the Black Community: The School Section 2: Quest for Economic Autonomy and Equal Rights Section 2:  Memory and Mourning Section 2: Violence

Biographical Sidebar:
Francis L. Cardozo

The son of a prominent Jewish businessman of Charleston and his free black wife, Francis L. Cardozo (1837-1903) played a leading role in promoting black education in the city.

After graduating in 1861 from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, he moved to Connecticut, where he served as a Congregationalist minister.

Cardozo returned to Charleston in 1865 as a teacher for the American Missionary Association, and soon was appointed to direct the Association's educational activities in the city.

In 1866, he was instrumental in the establishment of Avery Normal Institute, and became its first superintendent. The school trained black teachers, "the object," Cardozo wrote, "for which I left all the superior advantages and privileges of the North and came South."

Learn more about the Avery Institute

Article about Cardoza in the Cleveland Gazette, July 10, 1886

Cleveland Gazette, July 10, 1886

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Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War The Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery From Free Labor to Slave Labor Rights and Power: The Politics of Reconstruction Introduction The Ending of Reconstruction Epilogue: The Unfinished Revolution Credits for this Exhibit