Chapter 2: Owning, Controlling and Building Upon Cultural Capital: The Albany Enterprise Academy and Black Education in Southeast Ohio, 1863-1886

Doxey Wilkinson described education as “a dependent, inter-acting unit of the whole culture. Indeed, it lies at the heart of the culture, and necessarily reflects the contending values which there prevail.”¹ In the United States, free and enslaved African Americans sought education through legal and extralegal means throughout the 19th century, and recognized that formal schooling was an essential part of cultural development and vital to securing their freedom. The primary question for many African Americans was how and where to obtain an education.

V. P. Franklin has pointed out that cultural capital and social capital can be important elements in bringing about “community revitalization.”² “From the early nineteenth century, black mutual benefit societies and social and fraternal organizations sponsored business enterprises that were collectively owned and provided much needed social services to members of the black community.”³ Within this context, cultural capital is “the sense of group consciousness and collective identity that serves as an economic resource to support collective economic or philanthropic efforts.”⁴ As a culturally aware group, cultural capital assists African Americans in defining their “collective identity,” while “complex social networks” help to create and maintain economic resources to support collective advancement.⁵ Cultural capital grew out of the sense of responsibility and supported collective philanthropic or charitable efforts that “became the backbone for social and economic development.”⁶ It represented “a deep race consciousness” and clear understanding of what it means to be African American.⁷ This consciousness also served as a vehicle for other programs for “racial uplift” and was essential to the creation and support of their community.