The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (or the Freedmen’s Bureau) supported the first formally recognized adult education program in the United States in the post-Civil War period. Adult education for African Americans continued beyond this and concentrated in four areas: literacy, community education, continuing (or workplace) education, and academic or degree-granting programs. Perhaps the adult education program that is best known is that which was started in the early 1920s, and focused on helping adults lacking in basic skills.