| Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom Contributor(s): Williams, Heather Andrea (Author) |
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ISBN: 0807858218 ISBN-13: 9780807858219 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press OUR PRICE: $30.88 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2007 Annotation: Williams discusses how southern African Americans sought education during and after the Civil War, highlighting the efforts former slaves made on their own behalf by teaching, building schools, and attending school themselves. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Education | History - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) |
| Dewey: 370.899 |
| LCCN: 2004022755 |
| Series: John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.77" H x 6.42" W x 9.22" (0.98 lbs) 320 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - South - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Topical - Black History |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In this previously untold story of African American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams moves across time to examine African Americans' relationship to literacy during slavery, during the Civil War, and in the first decades of freedom. Self-Taught traces the historical antecedents to freedpeople's intense desire to become literate and demonstrates how the visions of enslaved African Americans emerged into plans and action once slavery ended. Enslaved people, Williams contends, placed great value in the practical power of literacy, whether it was to enable them to read the Bible for themselves or to keep informed of the abolition movement and later the progress of the Civil War. Some slaves devised creative and subversive means to acquire literacy, and when slavery ended, they became the first teachers of other freedpeople. Soon overwhelmed by the demands for education, they called on northern missionaries to come to their aid. Williams argues that by teaching, building schools, supporting teachers, resisting violence, and claiming education as a civil right, African Americans transformed the face of education in the South to the great benefit of both black and white southerners. In this previously untold story of African American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams moves across time to examine African Americans' relationship to literacy during slavery, during the Civil War, and in the first decades of freedom. Some slaves devised creative and subversive means to acquire literacy, and when slavery ended, they became the first teachers of other freedpeople. Williams argues that by teaching, building schools, supporting teachers, resisting violence, and claiming education as a civil right, African Americans transformed the face of education in the South to the great benefit of both black and white southerners. |
Contributor Bio(s): Williams, Heather Andrea: - Heather Andrea Williams, a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York State Attorney General's Office, is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |