New Books in Education

Derek W. Black, "Dangerous Learning: The South's Long War on Black Literacy" (Yale UP, 2025)

Jan 30, 2025

Derek W. Black, a law professor with a focus on education law and race history, discusses the critical struggle for Black literacy in the South. He reveals how enslaved individuals viewed literacy as a path to freedom, while Southern governments violently suppressed it. Black shares the story of secret schools and how literacy became a symbol of resistance. He connects historical themes with contemporary struggles for educational equity, and he hints at his upcoming work exploring global perspectives on democracy and education.

41:58

Episode guests

R. Derek Black

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Quick takeaways

Derek W. Black emphasizes that Black literacy historically served as a vital tool for empowerment and resistance against systemic oppression in the South.

The podcast highlights the ongoing legacy of educational inequity, illustrating the resilience of Black communities in their pursuit of literacy despite oppressive laws.

Deep dives

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Intro

4min

Unearthing the Narrative of Secret Schools in African-American Education

2min

Navigating the Challenges of Historical Research

3min

Struggles for Literacy and Freedom

4min

The Fight for Literacy: A Journey of Resistance

22min

Future Insights: A Global Perspective on Education and Democracy

2min

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.

Dangerous Learning: The South's Long War on Black Literacy (Yale UP, 2025) 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.

Omari Averette-Phillips is a PhD student in the History department at UC Davis.

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