Anti-literacy laws
By
John C Abercrombie
One of the factors affecting the appearance of inferiority of Blacks has been the action of Anti Literacy Laws. Not knowing the history of education in America, most of us are not familiar with laws that prevented anyone from teaching a Black person, either slave or free, from being taught to read and write.
These laws would not have had to be put on the books if Blacks could not learn, but that was not the case. The fear was that by learning, Blacks could share ideas. That they would learn of their impressive history. That they would understand the value of their work and innovative minds. A major concern is if they were literate, they could forge documents of freedom. Most of all, they would seek freedom and eliminate the vast source of free labor!
Even after slavery, share cropping would not yield the enormous profits to the White land owner. Share cropping involved the people, mostly Black, providing the labor for farming would receive a share of the crop. During this system, they would be forced to do business with the land owner for supplies, food and equipment, which was marked up quite highly. Since the share cropper had been denied the opportunity at an education, no matter how much money was made, the sharecropper could be told that there was no profit or that it was minimal. Perpetuating the system of dominance over the producer.
This yielded a generation of largely illiterate people. In later years, there were schools, but due to the interpretation of the Plessy v Ferguson decision, they were separate and definitely not equal.
The system was perpetuated with substandard schools. Books were frequently outdated books handed down from the White schools. Black teachers had larger class sizes, less equipment and were paid significantly less than White teachers.
Those Blacks who completed school did not receive full benefit from their labors, as they were not hired in jobs for which they were qualified. Instead, they were put in jobs designated as less desirable, lower paying, more dangerous etc. This generated a “Why put forth the effort if it is not going to pay off?” attitude among many Blacks.
While there has been progress in this area, many vestiges of it remain. Parents who earn less are able to provide less and this reinforces the earlier loss of faith in the benefits of education.
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Anti-Literacy Laws How Anti-literacy Laws are Related to the Black White Achievement Gap
It is not a coincidence or even a surprise that Black students experience gaps in academic outcomes given the history of forced enslavement and forced illiteracy experienced by Black people in this country. If you want to understand why there is an achievement gap, you have to be honest and look at the legal and enforced slave codes, anti-literacy laws, and actions of influencers determined to preserve their “way of life.”
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The subject of literacy is seldom spoken about. Most people are unaware of the continuing struggle for literacy that has imprinted itself so deeply in our society. Anti-literacy has been a problem in my lifetime. One of the saddest is that I have seen brilliant students forced to drop out of school, not because of their ability, but the need to work because their parents were forced into the least desirable and financially rewarding jobs. Denied jobs for which they were qualified. So, we see that it is a multi-generational problem that desperately needs to be addressed.