At the prodding of Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia General Assembly in 1782 passed legislation that allowed slave owners to manumit their slaves by issuing slaves a copy of their emancipation papers and making them “free issues.” Nevertheless, in Amherst County, Virginia, the meaning of “free issue” evolved to connote something very different than it did at its inception for a small mountain community.

Anna Julia Cooper and W.E.B. Du Bois were two of the most prominent African-American educators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, they both envisioned a broad education tailored specifically to the critical intellectual and vocational needs of the entire black community. They also participated in international affairs, attended and worked together at some of the same conferences and meetings, and shared a belief that education should encourage blacks to place their situation and struggles within a global context. In developing their educational ideas, they both addressed a wide range of educational issues (black women's education, education of the black masses, and the history curriculum in black schools) that spoke to the universal as well as the local realities of black life in America. At the core of their educational thought was their belief that social advancement would result in equality for blacks.

In 1930, the same year in which the segregationist Land Apportionment Act was passed, the governor of Rhodesia addressed a meeting of representatives from the various missionary organizations operating in the colony. He proceeded to argue against the sort of education that might create a class of African intellectuals who would eventually challenge white economic and political dominance:

Despite widespread support for the postwar expansion of higher education, U.S. colleges and universities in the early 1950s were not isolated from broader social currents, and the deep social anxieties and political tensions of the Cold War found their way onto college campuses. In 1952, the University of California was still reeling from the loyalty oath controversy. In the late 1940s the University of California, like other universities nationwide, had been viewed with increasing suspicion by anti-Communist groups. The search for subversives in California institutions, spearheaded by the Tenney Committee of the California State Legislature, led the University of California's Board of Regents to add a disclaimer of membership in any organization advocating the overthrow of the United States to the oath of allegiance already required of faculty. In an atmosphere of rising hysteria about possible subversives and Communists in academia, on February 24, 1950, the Regents voted to fire anyone employed by the University of California who failed to sign the oath. This decision led to strong opposition from students and faculty. Despite these protests, and particularly after the outbreak of the Korean War in June, 1950, the Regents held firm. On August 25, 1950, thirty-one members of the University of California faculty were dismissed because they refused to sign the loyalty oath. None of them was accused of being a Communist or subversive. After an appellate court ruled against the Regents, in October 1951 the Regents voted to rescind the oath, but maintained their stance that the university would not employ Communists. Although the California Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the appellate court and the non-signers were reinstated to the university, the mood at the university, as in the nation as a whole, continued to be one of anxiety and unease.