Throughout the South, it was illegal for white people to teach black people--enslaved and sometimes free--how to read. Some whites taught blacks anyway: at times motivated by kindness, other times by self-interest. But even without the assistance of white people, enslaved Americans learned to read and to write. Facing the threat of whippings and worse, they learned under cover of night, and in "pit schools" in the woods. They hid books in their dresses and under their hats so they would be ready for a lesson at any moment.
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