The Right to Learn | Wilmington Before the Coup

Learn about the importance of education in Wilmington’s Black Community, and how that community pursued education not only before it was free, but before it was legal for enslaved people to be educated. In its 1868 constitution, North Carolina became the first state in the nation to guarantee all children the right to a free education, declaring: “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools.”