OTOH...even during slavery and then wildly so, after slavery, blacks yearned for an education and most of them DID get one; even some being good enough to get into the "vaunted" Ivies and other top tier colleges WITHOUT any Affirmative Action at all!
SOME of the highly motivated ones got higher educations. But there was no comprehensive program to educate them en masse.
We are paying for that today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7rhJbr_rk