1. State anti-literacy laws

2. Resistance

3. References

Anti-literacy laws were in force in many slave states before and during the American Civil War, affecting slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color.^[1] These largely came into force following abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion,^[2] and Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831. The Southern white public was already fearful because of the Haitian Revolution of 1804 and the Denmark Vesey revolt of 1822.{{Citation needed|reason=Need a source for the entire white public being fearful following the mentioned revolutions.|date=September 2018}}

William M. Banks wrote, in Black Intellectuals:

"Literacy also threatened the control and surveillance network for slaves in the South. Concern about runaways prompted slaveholders to require passes for all slaves traveling unaccompanied off the plantation. Literate slaves, however, could forge the necessary papers and escape to the North (few white patrollers could read well enough to verify the documents). Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write."^[3]

State anti-literacy laws

"With the exception of Maryland and Kentucky, every Southern state absolutely prohibited the education of slaves," Angela Davis wrote.^[4]

Between 1829 and 1834 Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North and South Carolina and Virginia all passed anti-literacy laws.^[5] South Carolina prohibited teaching slaves to read and write, punishable by a fine of 100 pounds and six months in prison, via an amendment to its 1739 Negro Act.^[6]

A website titled "Fight Municipal Court Abuse (court.rchp.com) includes the following in its list of significant anti-black laws:

• 1819, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write
• 1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching blacks to read, punished by fine and imprisonment
• 1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited whites from teaching blacks to read or write, punished by fines and floggings
• 1833, Georgia: Prohibited blacks from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching blacks, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)
• 1847, Missouri: Prohibited teaching blacks to read or write^[7]

A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes."^[8]

In North Carolina, black people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine and/or jail time.^[9]

Laws restricting the education of black students were not limited to the South. In 1833, after black and white abolitionists founded a boarding school for African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut, the state legislature outlawed the instruction of 'colored students who were not inhabitants of the state', and the school was burned down shortly thereafter.^[10]

Resistance

Educators in the South found ways to both circumvent and challenge the law. John Berry Meachum, for example, moved his school out of St. Louis, Missouri when that state passed an anti-literacy law in 1847, and re-established it as the Floating Freedom School on a steamship on the Mississippi River, which was beyond the reach of Missouri state law.^[11] After she was arrested, tried, and served a month in prison for educating free black children in Norfolk, Virginia, Margaret Crittendon Douglas wrote a book on her experiences, which helped draw national attention to the anti-literacy laws.^[12]

...Some slaveholders tolerated slave literacy. Others ignored the statutes for economic reasons, realizing that literate slaves could handle record-keeping and business transactions, and thus increase the profits and leisure time of the planter class. The prohibitions were also ignored by pious masters who wanted their slaves to read the Bible. There are also numerous accounts of planter children enjoying "playing school" and teaching their slave playmates the rudiments of literacy."^[3]

References

• Social Media and the Effects on American Adolescent
• Social Media and the Effects on American Adolescents
• Social media and the effects on American adolescents
• Social media as a news source
• Social media celebrity
• Social media content marketing
• Social media coverage of the Olympics
• Social media detoxification
• Social media disruption by far-right groups in Germany
• Social media followers
• Social media holiday
• Social media in education
• Social media influencer
• Social media in politics
• Social media in the 2016 United States presidential election
• Social media in the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign
• Social media in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign
• Social media in the financial services sector
• Social media in the United States presidential election, 2016
• Social Media Kings Into Queens
• Social Media Monitoring
• Social media overuse
• Social media personality
• Social media platform
• Social media platforms