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| The number of secondary schools and colleges for African Americans in the South has grown to 117--with 27 of those offering collegiate studies. Among these 27 are state-funded "agricultural and mechanical colleges for Negroes" that were first established during the last decade of the 19th century. |
| America enters World War I on April 6. Approximately 370,000 African Americans, most from Southern states, will be in military service. More than half will serve in the French war zone. |
| America endures a "Red Summer," a bloody time when 26 race riots occur between the months of April and October. In addition, 67 Black Americans are reported lynched during 1919. |
| Adult Black illiteracy in the South declines to around 30 percent--a tremendous drop from 70 percent fifty years earlier. |
| Slater Fund marks its 40th anniversary. It has contributed $2.2 million, expanding African American education in the South. |
| The Julius Rosenwald Fund is stimulating a cooperative effort across the South to build Negro schools. Between 1913 and 1931, the Rosenwald Fund will have provided $4.3 million that was matched by $4.7 million from African Americans, $1.2 million from Whites, and $17.4 million from local and state governments in the South to build 5,295 schoolhouses for Black education. |
| "The school property shall belong to the state, county, or district, and the school shall be a part of the public school system. The teaching shall extend through the eighth year with the intention of adding at least two years as soon as it shall be possible. "--terms for Slater Fund support of local schools. |
| The average salary for a Black teacher is only 25% of that for a White teacher in Southern states. Fifteen years earlier, the average was 20%. |
| In Tennessee, the Scopes "monkey trial" spotlights whether the state can require a teacher to explain human origins according only to the Bible without mentioning evolution. Two great American lawyers, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, clash. |
 "[I]t appears that the typical Negro teacher of the South is a woman of rural heritage about 27 years old. She has completed high school and had ten weeks in summer schools. She teaches 47 children through six grades for a term of six months, remaining about two years in the same school. Her annual salary is $360, or $1 a day, and she teaches for about five years." - Slater Fund Report. |
| Jeanes Teachers are working in all Southern states and the Virgin Islands. |
| In Gong Lum v. Rice, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a Chinese girl was not exempt from Mississippi's school segregation laws. Her family wanted her to go to the White school, but the Court rules that the state can require her to go to the Black school since states can define "White" and "nonwhite" as they please. |
| Southern states maintain significant gaps in the number of school days available to children by race. On average, White schools have a term of 164 days while Black schools are open for only 144 days. |
| Racial disparities in student expenditures remain wide in Southern states. As in 1914, Southern states spend less than 38 cents in educating a Black child for every dollar they spend educating a White child although the per child expenditures rose for both groups ($42.39 per White child versus $15.86 per Black child). |
| Slater Fund reports sharp rise in African American enrollment in the South's Black colleges and universities. In the last 8 years, for example, enrollment in twelve colleges rose by 300 percent. |
| Adult Black literacy reaches 80 percent, dropping the illiteracy rate by 10 percent in 10 years. The proportion of Black children in school reaches nearly 90 percent, and, for the first time in the South's history, Black public high schools are common. The number of African American college students in the South also increased from an estimated 1600 in 1914 to over 25,000 in 1930. |
| Slater Fund spurs a continued increase in the number of public high schools for African American students in Southern states. Over the last 20 years (1911 to 1931), the number of high schools rose from 4 to 390. |
|  South Carolina leads the South and nation for gross disparity in per child school expenditures. For every dollar the state spends on a White child's education, it spends less than a dime educating a Black child. |
1916-1931: