CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today September 5, 2014
1832 in the wake of nat turners revolt. Until then, theres an actual fair amount of teaching slaves to read and write, particularly artisans and house slaves. The other thing is, this is also a period in which the vast majority of enslaved people in the chesapeake have become christians, and theyre usually methodist or baptist and their class leaders or teachers would like many of them to be able to read the bible. So theres much more literacy than we have bargained on, and you dont need everybody to be able to read it. If theres one group of 50 who can read, he can read it to everybody else. ...