The following is posted on behalf of Tom Sticht--more good  
information for Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month February 2006

Three Black Ladies of Adult Literacy Education
In the Struggle for Social Justice in the United States

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

In Black History Month we celebrate the history of African-Americans  
in the
United States. In this history, nothing is more important than the  
struggle
of slaves, freedmen, and oppressed African-Americans to learn to read  
and
write and to use these literacy skills to obtain their civil rights.

In this history, three great African-American ladies stand out from
thousands of others because of the remarkable circumstances under which
they labored to help African-Americans gain the dignity and  
confidence they
needed to stand up for their rights. This is a brief summary of some  
of the
contributions of these three African-American ladies of literacy and
liberty.

Suzie (Baker) King Taylor (1848-unknown)

Susie (Baker) King Taylor was born a slave in Savannah, Georgia in  
1848. She
was raised by her grandmother who sent her and one of her brothers to  
the
home of a free women to learn to read and write, even though it was  
against
the law for slaves to learn to read and write.  As she explained in  
her 1902
book, "We went every day with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the
police or white persons from seeing them." (Taylor in Lerner, 1972)

During the Civil War the Union Army initiated the practice of enlisting
freed African-Americans. But it was soon apparent that there were  
problems
in using these men as soldiers. Among other problems,  it was  
difficult for
officers to communicate with illiterate former slaves. So promotion and
advancement in the army was difficult for the African-American soldiers.
Many of them blamed this situation on their lack of education. In  
response
to these needs, many officers initiated programs of education for the
former slaves.

One officer, Colonel Thomas W. Higginson of the 33rd U. S. Colored  
Troops,
appointed the chaplain as the regimental teacher. Higginson  
reportedly saw
men at night gathered around a campfire, "spelling slow monosyllables  
out
of a primer, a feat which always commands all ears, " and he observed  
that,

"Their love of the spelling book is perfectly inexhaustible,
-they stumbling on by themselves, or the blind leading the
blind, with the same pathetic patience which they carry into
everything. The chaplain is getting up a schoolhouse,
where he will soon teach them as regularly as he can.
But the alphabet must always be a very incidental
business in a camp." (Cornish, 1952).

One of the people whom the chaplain engaged in teaching soldiers of  
the 33rd
to read and write was Susie King Taylor (Blassingame, 1965). She went  
with
the regiment to Florida where she reported that "I learned to handle a
musket very well while in the regiment and could shoot straight and  
often
hit the target. I assisted in cleaning the guns and used to fire them  
off,
to see if the cartridges were dry, before cleaning and re-loading , each
day. I thought this was great fun." (Taylor in Lerner, 1972, p. 101).

Describing something of the conditions under which she worked, Taylor  
said,

"Outside of the Fort were many skulls lying about;  I have often  
moved them
one side out of the path.The comrades and I would have wondered a bit  
as to
which side of the war the men fought on, some said they were the  
skulls of
our boys; some  said they were the enemies; but as there was no definite
way to know, it was never decided which could lay claim to them. They  
were
a gruesome sight, those fleshless heads and grinning jaws, but by  
this time
I had become used to worse things and did not feel as I would have  
earlier
in my camp life. –(Taylor in Lerner, 1972)

According to Taylor, "I taught a great many of the comrades in  
Company E to
read and write when they were off duty, nearly all were anxious to  
learn.
My husband taught some also when it was convenient for him. I was very
happy to know my efforts were successful in camp also very grateful  
for the
appreciation of my services. I gave my services willingly for four  
years and
three months without receiving a dollar." (Taylor in Lerner, 1972)

Throughout the Civil War, thousands of teachers, some modestly paid  
and many
volunteers, worked often under very arduous conditions, such as  
described
above by Suzie King Taylor, to educate the newly freed slaves who  
came to
fight for the preservation of the United States of America. In just the
Union Army’s  Department of the Gulf (Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama,Texas) by 1864 there were 95 schools with 9,571 children and  
2,000
adults being taught by 162 teachers. By the war’s end it was  
estimated some
20,000 African-American troops had been taught to read "intelligently"
(Blassingame, 1965).

Harriet A. Jacobs (1813-1897)

Harriet A. Jacobs was born a slave. But even though it was unlawful  
to teach
slaves to read, Jacob’s mistress, the daughter of her owners, taught  
her to
read and write. As she reached puberty, Jacob’s master started to make
moves on her for sexual favors and subjected her to other abuses. So she
ran away and hid at her grandmother’s house. She hid in a garret between
the ceiling and roof that was about seven feet wide, nine feet in length
and only three feet high at the highest point. She hid there for seven
years!

In 1861, Jacobs  wrote a book entitled, "Incidents in the life of a  
slave
girl written by herself." In it she tells the story of her work to  
help an
older black man, a slave like her, learn to read so he could reach for a
greater reward for himself at the end of his life. In Jacob’s own  
words of
her time:

  "I knew an old black man, whose piety and childlike trust in God were
beautiful to witness. At fifty-three years old he joined the Baptist
church. He had a most earnest desire to learn to read. He thought he  
should
know how to serve God better if he could only read the Bible. He came  
to me,
and begged me to teach him. He said he could not pay me, for he had no
money; but he would bring me nice fruit when the season for it came. I
asked him if he didn’t know it was contrary to law; and that slaves were
whipped and imprisoned for teaching each other to read. This brought the
tears into his eyes. "Don’t be troubled, Uncle Fred," said I. "I have no
thoughts of refusing to teach you. I only told you of the law, that you
might know the danger, and be on your guard."

He thought he could plan to come three times a week without its being
suspected. I selected a quiet nook, where no intruder was likely to
penetrate, and there I taught him his A, B, C. Considering his age, his
progress was astonishing. As soon as he could spell in two syllables he
wanted to spell out words in the Bible. The happy smile that illuminated
his face put joy into my heart. After spelling out a few words he  
paused,
and said, "Honey, it ‘pears when I can read dis good book I shall be  
nearer
to God. White man is got all de sense. He can larn easy. It ain’t  
easy for
ole black man like me. I only want to read dis book, dat I may know  
how to
live; den I hab no fear ‘bout dying."

I tried to encourage him by speaking of the rapid progress he had  
made. "Hab
patience, child," he replied. "I larns slow." At the end of six  
months he
had read through the New Testament, and could find any text in it.":End
Quote

The Freedmen’s Schools. Later in her life, after achieving her freedom,
Jacobs taught school for former slaves in what were called the  
Freedmen’s
Schools. These schools were set up after the Civil War when the U. S.
Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned  
Lands as
the primary agency for reconstruction. This agency was placed under the
jurisdiction of the War Department and was popularly known as the
Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided education for freed
former slaves engaging teachers who were primarily from voluntary
organizations such as the American Missionary Association. Collectively
these organizations became known as Freedmen’s Aid Societies. Between  
1862
and 1872, fifty-one anti-slavery societies, involving some 2,500  
teachers
and over 2,000 schools, were conducting  education for freedmen. The
Freedmen’s Bureau was disbanded in 1872 for lack of political support
(Morris, 1981).

Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987)

Septima Poinsette Clark has been called the "Queen Mother’ of the Civil
Rights Movement in the United States. Clark taught black soldiers at  
Fort
Jackson in South Carolina to read and write in the 1930s. Later she
conducted workshops at the Highlander Folk school in Tennessee where  
one of
her students was Rosa Parks.  Later Clark started citizenship schools  
with
Dr. Martin Luther King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Septima Clark was an innovator in teaching adult reading and writing  
within
the functional context of the civil rights movement to free
African-Americans from the oppression of those wanting to deny them full
citizenship. Her methods included using "real life" materials for  
teaching
adults to read (Clark, 1986). On January 7, 1957, Clark and her teachers
started the first Citizenship School serving adult African-Americans on
Johns Island in South Carolina. Clark (1962) recalled that when the
teachers asked the students what they wanted to learn, the answer was  
that,
"First, they wanted to learn how to write their names. That was a  
matter of
pride as well as practical need. (p. 147).

In teaching students to write their names Clark instructed teachers  
to carve
student’s names into cardboard. Then, according to Clark (1962),  
"What the
student does is trace with his pencil over and over his signature  
until he
gets the feel of writing his name. I suppose his fingers memorize it by
doing it over and over; he gets into the habit by repeating the tracing
time after time." (p.148). She went on to say, "And perhaps the single
greatest thing it accomplishes is the enabling of a man to raise his  
head a
little higher; knowing how to sign their names, many of those men and  
women
told me after they had learned, made them FEEL different. Suddenly  
they had
become a part of the community; they were on their way toward first- 
class
citizenship." (p. 149).

Speaking of a cleaning woman who asked to be taught to read and write  
in the
Citizenship School on Johns Island, South Carolina,  so that she might
prepare herself to vote, Septima Poinsette Clark wrote:

"This woman is but one of those persons whose stories I could tell.  
One will
never be able, I maintain, to measure or even to approximate the good  
that
this work among the adult illiterates on this one island has  
accomplished.
How can anybody estimate the worth of pride achieved, hope accomplished,
faith affirmed, citizenship won? These are intangible things but real
nevertheless, solid and of inestimable value."

Working with Dr. Martin Luther King at the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference Clark took the simple adult literacy educator’s method for
teaching adults to write their names and eventually trained 10,000  
teachers
to teach literacy so that African-Americans could gain the vote.  
Altogether,
the Citizenship Schools got nearly 700,000 African-American adults
registered to vote in the South, providing political muscle to the Civil
Rights Movement  of the 1960s!

Black History Month owes a lot of its existence to the work of these  
three
great Black ladies, and of course many other African-American  
educators not
noted here, who labored under conditions of duress to help slaves,  
freedmen,
and those African-Americans living under oppression in the middle of the
20th century to acquire literacy. Armed with literacy, African-Americans
throughout the United States won the struggle for civil rights.

But the struggle goes on. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy  
(NAAL)
of 2003 showed that 67 percent of African-American adults scored at the
Basic or Below Basic literacy levels for prose tasks. But in fiscal year
2003, African-Americans made-up only 20 percent of adults enrolled in  
the
Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States. Clearly
then, at the outset of the 21st century there is a continuing need for
political action to support African-American and other adult literacy
educators in their efforts to bring literacy and social justice for all.
The work goes on; and

We SHALL overcome!

References

Blassingame, J. W. (1965). The Union Army as an educational  
institution for
Negroes, 1862-1865. Journal of Negro Education, 34, 152-159.

Clark, Septima P. (1962). Echo in my soul. New York: E. P. Dutton & C0.
Cornish, D. T. (1952). The Union Army as a school for Negroes.  
Journal of
Negro history, 37, 368-382.

Cornish, D. T. (1952). The Union Army as a school for Negroes.  
Journal of
Negro History, 37, 368-382.

Jacobs, H. A. (1987). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by
herself. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work  
published
in 1861).

Lerner, G. (Ed.) (1972). Black women in white America: A documentary
history. New York: Pantheon Books-Random house.

Morris, R.C. (1981). Reading, ‘Riting, and Reconstruction: The  
Education of
Freedmen in the South, 1861-1870. Chicago: The University of Chicago  
Press.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net




Gail J. Price
Multimedia Specialist
National Center for Family Literacy
325 West Main Street, Suite 300
Louisville, KY 40205

Phone: 502 584-1133, ext. 112
Fax: 502 584-0172


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