The antebellum federal censuses did not record the rate of illiteracy among slaves, but if they had, it is likely the rate would have been 90 percent or higher (ages ten and older). In the aftermath of the Civil War, African-American illiteracy declined sharply, mainly because successive generations of children learned to read and write. In 1870, 84 percent of Southern-born African-Americans were illiterate. By 1900, a generation later, the rate had fallen to 51 percent; by 1920, slightly more than a half-century after Emancipation, illiteracy among southern-born blacks stood at 26 percent.

I say “mainly” because the census evidence suggests that adult slaves who were illiterate generally remained illiterate once freed. However, some did manage to learn to read and write before the Civil War, and others did while the War was progressing, or shortly thereafter. Heather Andrea Williams's excellent new book, Self-Taught, tells their story, emphasizing the role that literate African-Americans played in “jump-starting” the extraordinary reduction in illiteracy after the War. As such, the book offers a highly useful corrective to the conventional wisdom that most of the initial decline can be attributed to the courageous efforts of sympathetic whites, such as the famed “soldiers of light and love”—Northern white female teachers who ventured South after the Civil War to teach former slaves to read and write.

Following a brief introduction, Self-Taught is arranged into nine substantive chapters, an epilogue, and a legal appendix documenting various antebellum statutes pertaining to the instruction of slaves and free blacks. Chapter 1, “In Secret Places,” discusses the great difficulties that slaves faced in acquiring literacy. Fearing insurrection, southern state legislatures made it a crime for persons to instruct slaves or free blacks to read and write, among other related prohibitions (for example, employing a slave to run a printing press, in the case of Georgia). This did not stop some owners from attempting to reap private rewards associated with slave literacy—Williams notes several examples—but most slave owners, it seems, believed that literate slaves were more likely to foment rebellion or run away. Williams also discusses how slaves compensated for the lack of reading material by developing superior listening and memory skills and the ability to communicate news through word of mouth.

Chapters 2 through 4 discuss the acquisition of literacy while the Civil War was progressing and during the heady early days after the War. Williams emphasizes the initiative and “self-help” activities of former slaves in their quest for literacy. Chapter 3, perhaps the most interesting in the book, examines the acquisition of literacy by black soldiers while serving in the Union Army. Chapter 4 analyzes the advocacy role played by various state-wide conventions held by African-Americans in the South shortly after the War.

Chapters 5 through 7 focus on the process by which schools came into being, on those who taught in them, and on the scarcity of materials to assist teachers (e.g., textbooks). As Williams discusses in chapter 5, self-reliance was almost a necessity in the establishment of schools for the newly freed slaves; few southern whites were willing to help, and northern whites were scarce on the ground. Self-reliance, too, played an important role in the establishment of the teaching force. It may surprise readers who are accustomed to the conventional wisdom that northern teachers were chiefly responsible for the initial decline in illiteracy to learn that according to a federal report in 1868, black teachers accounted for slightly more than half of those teaching ex-slaves. And as Williams demonstrates, almost certainly the vast majority of the black teachers came from the South. Although a few were well-schooled by the standards of the time, the majority were probably barely literate themselves.

Chapter 8 delves further into the classroom environment, as well as the factors circumscribing school attendance. African-American parents, Williams claims, had an intense desire to have their children educated but faced numerous practical difficulties. Sheer poverty, lack of adequate clothing, impassable roads, and white opposition conspired to limit regular school attendance. Chapter 9 concludes by examining the difficult and contentious process by which the various state legislatures of the ex-Confederacy passed laws establishing common schools, albeit racially segregated ones.

Williams makes highly effective use of traditional literary sources but, save one table and the occasional passage, only limited use of quantitative evidence, even when such evidence could have bolstered her case or raised new questions for analysis. For example, her legal appendix, as previously noted, documents the various antebellum laws that prohibited the instruction of slaves. These laws, generally, also prohibited the teaching of free blacks, but were they effective in doing so? This question could have been addressed using the 1850 and 1860 integrated public use micro-data samples of the federal census because in both years, the literacy status of free blacks was reported. According to the census data, school attendance rates of southern black children rose dramatically between 1870 and 1880; presumably the passage of the common school laws played an important role in generating this increase, but how important is not known, as far as I am aware. These are, however, minor caveats. Beautifully written and cogently argued, Self-Taught deserves the attention of all scholars interested in early history of African-American schools.