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Black to the future – Literacy as freedom

Dana Moulds reflects on the history and power of literacy in the Black community.

Photo by Guy Basabose on Unsplash

There’s an on-going rhetoric, perpetuated since the era of Jim Crow and desegregation that says, “if you want to hide something from Black people, put it in a book,” alluding to the false notion that African Americans don’t read. Historically during slavery, illiteracy was promoted through the slave codes in some states which, among other racist laws, made it illegal to teach enslaved people to read.

There was freedom and power in...

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