This essay explores factors creating Missouri's minimum attendance laws for black students from the end of the Civil War to the enactment of compulsory education in the state in 1905. It argues that, although blacks made notable efforts at educational advancement, they were caught in a crossfire of opposing forces stemming from wartime animosities, political differences, and controversy over the new industrial economy. These forces--plus whites' belief in black inferiority--produced a flawed educational system that endured for black Missourians nearly one hundred years after its creation. The essay highlights developments influencing minimum attendance laws as well as their impact on three areas with sparse black populations--Polk County on the Ozark Plateau in southwest Missouri, Grundy County on the prairie in Missouri's north central region, and St. Louis County near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in the east central part of the state.