For this question, I’m referring only to the states where segregation was the law of the land in the post-Civil War era.
Julius Rosenwald, former Sears executive, is credited with contributing lots of money in the early 1900s to fund building schools for Blacks primarily in the South.
Before that, were the states funding/building Black only schools?
Were states generally funding any schools at that time, or was it all handled locally?
When did states start creating state-level education departments?’
Are you talking about elementary schools, secondary schools or colleges?
Around here, school districts with a significant Black population would build an all-black elementary school (that’s how “separate but equal” worked.) Nearby school districts with few “Negro” children would pay tuition to send them to the other district. And if you’re talking pre-1900, a lot of places didn’t even offer high schools, white or black. You found a school that would take your kid, and you were responsible for transportation.
Before 1890, Southern colleges that admitted Blacks were almost exclusively sponsored/run by religious institutions. Then the second Morrill Act made it a law that if a segregated state ran a land-grant college for whites, they had to either admit black people, or open a land-grant school for Blacks. (Land-grant schools received federal funds.)
Elementary and secondary, for the most part. (But higher learning is OK, too. Never know what you might learn.)