We review research on the history of education policy in colonial sub-Saharan Africa and among the African Diaspora in the United States and Brazil through a political economy lens. While the supply of education was severely constricted in all of these cases, demand for education remained strong. Thus, even as authoritarian states have attempted to restrict educational supply for social control, the strength of the demand--and the accompanying pedagogical, organizational, and political innovations--illustrates the power of education to empower marginalized communities. Through reviewing work in economics, history, and political science, we highlight the transformative effects of formal education in Black communities as well as the centrality of Black people in demanding access to higher education and innovating new political ideas and pedagogies that saw education as a force for liberation. Governments and citizens must continue to work to correct the inherited distortions in the supply of education in Black communities in Africa as well as in the diaspora.