[Reading-hall-of-fame] Black History Month

[Thomas Sticht]

*2/5/2018*



*Black History Month: Celebrating African-Americans in Adult Literacy
Education*



Tom Sticht

                                                      International
Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)



February is Black History Month in which we celebrate African-Americans who
have made America a better place to live for all its people. Among these
are several African-Americans who served their nation by lighting the torch
of literacy for African-Americans in times of war…both wars against
America’s external enemies, and wars against illiteracy, poverty, and
oppression  within America.



This year adult educators can learn more about several key African-American
educators who helped fight these wars at the web site for the Coalition on
Adult Basic Education (COABE):
https://www.coabe.org/adult-education-history/


At this site you will find an e-book entitled “The Struggle for Adult
Literacy Education in America: A Trilogy Of Notes on History, Research,
Policy, & Practice in Adult Literacy Education
<https://www.coabe.org/s/Bk-Trilogy1.pdf>.” The report discusses several
African-Americans who struggled to bring literacy to slaves and former
slaves.  Here is a sample of the discussions for these adult literacy
educators:

*1.      **Susie King Taylor (1848-1912). *



During the Civil War, one of the people engaged in teaching soldiers who
were former slaves to read and write was Susie King Taylor, herself a
former slave. As a freed woman traveling with the 33rd Colored Regiment in
the Civil War Taylor reported that “I taught a great many of the comrades
in Company E to read and write when they were off duty, nearly all were
anxious to learn. I was very happy to know my efforts were successful in
camp also very grateful for the appreciation of my services. I gave my
services willingly for four years and three months without receiving a
dollar.”



*2.      **Harriet A. Jacobs (1813-1897). *



One of the earliest accounts of teaching an adult to read comes from the
work of the slave Harriet A. Jacobs. In 1861, after she became a free
woman, Jacobs wrote a book entitled, “Incidents in the life of a slave girl
written by herself.”  In it she tells the story of how she helped an older
black man, a slave like her, learn to read. Later in her life, after
achieving her freedom, Jacobs taught school for former slaves in what were
called the Freedmen’s Schools. These schools were set up after the Civil
War when the U. S. Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands as the primary agency for reconstruction



3.      *Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987).*



Septima Poinsette Clark, whom some called “the Queen Mother of the Civil
Rights Movement” of the 1960s, worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and other civil rights
groups from 1962 to 1966, She lead the Voter Registration Project that
prepared 10,000 teachers for citizenship schools where they taught adult
literacy for African-Americans within the functional context of voter
registration. By the time Clark retired from her SCLC work in 1970 over a
million African-Americans had registered to vote in the south.



*4.      **Ambrose Caliver (1894-1962)*

Dr. Ambrose Caliver was an African-American who worked to improve black
education on a national scale. He devoted much of his professional life to
adult literacy. He began his federal work on behalf of African-American
education when he was appointed by President Herbert Hoover as Senior
Specialist for Negro Education in the United States Office of Education
(USOE) He took advantage of the technology of radio to raise awareness of
the differences in educational opportunities between Whites and Blacks.
Under his direction, a nine-part radio program called “Freedom’s People”
was produced and broadcast during 1941-1942. Caliver’s work in the struggle
against the Jim Crow laws and his advancement of African American history,
literacy, and education was a cornerstone in the foundation on which the
Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws of the 1960s were constructed.



*5.      ** Shirley Jackson and the Right to Read (R2R) Program *



Dr. Shirley Jackson directed the U.S. government’s R2R program within the
Office of Education in the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare (HEW). Following her work on the R2R Jackson went on to direct the
National Basic Skills Improvement Program and she served in various
leadership positions within the Department of Education and the Office of
Civil Rights in the Office of Education Research and Improvement. As a
member of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), Jackson contributed
to the NCNW mission: “…to lead, develop, and advocate for women of African
descent as they support their families and communities.”

In celebration of Black History Month, you can read more about each of the
foregoing African-Americans who worked to improve literacy and civil rights
for African-Americans and others in the e-book cited above.

tgsticht at gmail.com


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