In May 1882 Slater transferred $1,000,000 to a board of trustees incorporated by the State of New York. The fund's stated purpose was "uplifting the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education."Memorial 1885, p.29 The Peabody Education Fund established in 1867 was restricted to support existing schools in the South (by definition for whites only, as no public schools for freedmen existed before the Civil War and public schools were limited after Reconstruction.) Instead, the Slater Fund contributed to schools which provided the education of colored students. The majority of blacks still lived in rural areas and had to attend segregated public schools, which were typically underfunded by the white Democrat-dominated state legislatures. With an economy chiefly based on agriculture, the South was struggling to recover from losses during the American Civil War, and funds for public services were limited.
