Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy
The enduring legacy of the nineteenth-century struggle for Black literacy in the American South
Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.
This book describes the violent lengths to which southern leaders went to repress Black literacy and the extraordinary courage it took Black people to resist. Derek W. Black shows how, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of Reconstruction, literacy evolved from a subversive gateway to freedom to a public program to extend citizenship and build democratic institutions—and how, once Reconstruction was abandoned, opposition to educating Black children depressed education throughout the South for Black and white students alike. He also reveals the deep imprint those events had on education and how this legacy is resurfacing today.
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Praise for Dangerous Learning
“Today political actors are fighting what teachers can teach, what students can learn, and how the truth can be bent to distort our history. Derek Black lays out a powerful corrective to the war on academic freedom and the pursuit of a deeper understanding of our complex history. It is a resource that teachers and parents need to make sense of our current moment.”
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, past president, National Academy of Education
“The story of the fight for literacy of Black people in the United States is one of great hope and of profound frustration. Professor Derek Black has written a magnificent book that tells this story from the earliest days of the country through today’s continuing struggles. Black’s beautifully written book reminds us of a largely forgotten history that must be remembered and be a basis for action now.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky, author of Worse Than Nothing
“As Derek W. Black rightly concludes this bracing, moving history, ‘something dangerously reminiscent of the pre–Civil War South is happening in education today.’ Read Dangerous Learning to grasp the heritage of the perilous path MAGA-elected officials have chosen to suppress learning among those they seek to silence and dominate.”
—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
“Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origin of public education in this country, the role it plays in our democracy, and the dangers of the current attacks on public education and ideas labeled ‘controversial.’ Black chronicles the backlash in the South against literacy, schooling, and ‘dangerous learning’ that followed Denmark Vesey’s planned revolt and Nat Turner’s rebellion, and he chronicles the powerful work of educators in the wake of the Civil War who formed schools to educate students at great peril to themselves, which laid the very foundations for our public education systems.We owe it to our students to understand that history.”
—Becky Pringle, president, National Education Association
“Derek Black’s history of Black literacy is a powerful testimony to the importance of literacy for freedom and self-determination. The stories he tells about the Black struggle for learning are inspiring. We are now locked in an epic struggle over the freedom to learn and the survival of public schools. Black’s book should be required reading for those who treasure learning.”
—Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools