Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom.

Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom. By Heather Andrea Williams (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. xiii plus 320 pp. $29.95).

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Heather Andrea Williams paints a subtle, compelling, and poignant portrait of freedpeoples' determined efforts to secure the right to an education for themselves and their children. Placing African Americans at the center of her story, Williams argues convincingly that "freed-people, not northern whites, initiated the educational movement in the South while the Civil War was being fought" (5). Even amidst the chaos of the early months of the war, in contraband camps, freedmen's villages, and on the Sea Islands of Georgia, former slaves immediately turned their energies to establishing makeshift schools. Their first teachers were often former slaves who had managed to "steal an education." Education had long signified empowerment, self-determination, and a privilege of whiteness.

In this finely-crafted, nuanced, and well-written book, Williams brings to light a history that has never been fully told before, telling that story through the words of the protagonists themselves. The case studies and extensive quotes from primary sources create a richly-textured analysis. Because there is little to critique in this path-breaking work, this review aims to provide the reader with a summary of her major arguments, findings, and conclusions.

Chapter One, "Acquiring Literacy in Slave Communities," explores how literacy was regarded as an "instrument of resistance and liberation" within slave communities (8). Although it was against the law in Southern states to teach slaves to read and write, and even in some to teach free Blacks, enslaved people developed ingenious ways to acquire rudimentary literacy. Despite severe punishments, domestic servants learned from their access to books and newspapers and close relations white children, who could often be persuaded to share their lessons. Williams also presents intriguing evidence of clandestine schools that existed in southern cities as well as rural areas.

In Chapter Two, "Literacy in the First Days of Freedom," Williams argues that it was the freedpeople's own passion for education that inspired and fueled the efforts of Northerners. White northerners "answered, rather than generated, the call for education." (40) She characterizes this relationship as "synergistic." Although roughly 1,400 white northern missionaries and teachers went South between 1862 and the early 1870s, even when Northern whites were the primary teachers, "freedpeople built the schools, paid teachers, and made other contributions to the educational effort." (40)

In Chapter Three, "African American Soldiers and the Educational Mission," Williams documents how black soldiers in the Union Army, over half of whom were former slaves, tirelessly petitioned the army for schools, teachers, books, and educational materials. One reverend noted that he "found everywhere manifested an earnest desire to learn. In hospitals I found them teaching each other to read. Nowhere among our soldiers were papers and books more acceptable than in these colored hospitals." (51) After the war, Black soldiers played a key role in raising funds for many schools and educational institutions, founding several, even though their pivotal role was often written out of the histories of those institutions.

In Chapter Four, "Advocacy for Education," Williams demonstrates how freedpeople attempted to "insert a right to education into their newly gained freedom." Unlike traditional civil rights such as suffrage, jury service, or the right to testify in court, education was not a right enumerated in the Constitution. Despite this, African Americans clearly recognized the role of literacy in securing civic and political rights. African-American conventions, political associations, and delegations to state constitutional conventions pressed for the creation of public school systems while individual parents demanded the right to withdraw their children from the fields or apprenticeships and send them to school

Chapter Five, "Organizing Schools on the Ground," explores the strained partnership between the freedpeople and northern whites, especially in relation to the issue of hiring African-American teachers and principals. She notes that, "Some white Northerners were affronted that the freedpeople expected them to work with them rather than have authority over them." White Northerners were more comfortable working with white teachers and often automatically assumed that white teachers were more qualified. They were particularly disconcerted by the prospect of black-controlled schools. In reality, African Americans single-handedly built, financed, and staffed over half the schools officially-recognized by the Freedman's Bureau, not to mention many more informal and remote schools.

In Chapter Six, "African American Teachers in Freedpeople's Schools," Williams describes the particular challenges faced by black teachers. An 1868 survey counted 3,791 white and 4,213 black teachers in officially-recognized schools. African-American teachers barely eked out a living, enduring threats by southern whites (including physical assault and widespread arson) as well as the paternalism of Northern supporters. They taught from 18 to 146 students in a classroom; adult education classes and Sunday Sabbath schools added to their workloads. Most were local southerners. Northern aid societies discriminated against hiring black teachers. Even very light-skinned African Americans faced open hostility from their white co-workers.

Chapter Seven, "Textbooks and Freedpeople's Schools," explores curriculum struggles. The freedman's schools faced not only a serious shortage of books and supplies, but the appropriateness of the available textbooks was also an issue. As national divisions deepened in the 1850s, southerners launched a campaign to remove both northern textbooks and teachers from Southern schools. They began publishing their own textbooks reflecting white supremacist "Southern" values, culminating in such works as the Series of Confederate Readers. Freedpeople's schools rejected these texts outright. Instead, abolitionists undertook to develop textbooks specifically for the freedpeople in which they sought to inculcate "Northern values." While some texts, such as the Freedman's Spelling Book, were subtle, others were heavy-handed and condescending. Despite their rejection of Confederate texts, African Americans were not in a position to reject those proffered by their "allies" or write their own.

In Chapter Eight, "Students in Freedpeople's Schools," Williams examines the actual conditions of schooling: the inadequate physical spaces, lack of supplies, large numbers of students (often ill-clothed and ill-fed), and wide age range. White teachers often expressed surprise over the rapidity with which black students learned. Even the Superintendent of Freedman's Education, John Alvord, wondered whether African Americans were innately inferior to whites and questioned how quickly they would learn.

In her final chapter, Williams analyzes the creation of common schools in the South under the Reconstruction governments, focusing on both poor white and planter reactions to Black schooling. Yet despite their unceasing desire for education, the hopes of African Americans would not be realized for at least another century. In a 1911 survey, W.E.B. Dubois found that half of southern black children did not attend school at all, while many others went only sporadically. Those who were able to attend were confronted with segregation, "wretched and inadequate" buildings, lack of texts and materials, under-trained, poorly-paid teachers, and a curriculum that stressed manual and industrial training (199). As under slavery, some African Americans succeeded in "stealing an education" in the Jim Crow South, but the majority would see their dreams deferred. Indeed, one could easily argue that the dream of equal access to quality education has yet to be realized.

L. Mara Dodge

Westfield State College