Title: Fast History: Learning How to Read and Write As a Slave – Intelexual Media
Headings: Fast History: Learning How to Read and Write As a Slave
Fast History: Learning How to Read and Write As a Slave
References
Next
WELCOME! ;) I’m Lexual!
Shop My Books!
Tags
want to support Intelexual Media?

Content: In Baltimore churches, free blacks and some slaves attended sabbath schools that taught basic literacy and math. John Berry Meachum
After Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1832, white Americans trembled in fear at the reality of black literacy. A slew of laws barring black education (of both the free and enslaved) were passed in the years that followed. But this just sent learning even more underground. Illegal schools were conducted in New Orleans, Atlanta, Charleston, and other large cities. Perhaps the coolest illegal school of all was the Floating Freedom School. John Berry Meachum, a former slave, started his school in 1825 before Missouri banned the education of blacks in 1847. In response, he relocated his school to the Mississippi River, where his floating school was beyond the reach of the law. It’s hard to believe there was once a time when being educated was so crucial to life that people were willing to lose body parts or die for it. In the present day it hurts when I see a young person shake off the importance of education.