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Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom » (1st Edition)

Book cover image of Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom by Heather Andrea Williams

Authors: Heather Andrea Williams
ISBN-13: 9780807829202, ISBN-10: 080782920X
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press, The
Date Published: March 2005
Edition: 1st Edition

Author Biography: Heather Andrea Williams

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.

Book Synopsis

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.

1	In secret places : acquiring literacy in slave communities	7
2	A coveted possession : literacy in the first days of freedom	30
3	The men are actually clamoring for books : African American soldiers and the educational mission	45
4	We must get education for ourselves and our children : advocacy for education	67
5	We are striving to dwo buisness on our own hook : organizing schools on the ground	80
6	We are laboring under many difficulties : African American teachers in freedpeople's schools	96
7	A long and tedious road to travel for knowledge : textbooks and freedpeople's schools	126
8	If anybody wants an education, it is me : students in freedpeople's schools	138
9	First movings of the waters : the creation of common school systems for black and white students	174
App	African Americans, literacy, and the law in the antebellum South	203