It was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey Douglass (1818–1895), the most prominent leader in the antislavery abolitionist movement, was also a women’s rights advocate, a US diplomat, and a bestselling author of two autobiographies.
In this passage from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, originally published in 1845 and excerpted here from the 2010 edition featuring an introductory essay by Angela Y. Davis, Douglass tells the powerful story of his enslaved childhood and his awakening to disobey his White slave masters by secretly teaching himself to read, resist, escape, and ultimately achieve his freedom.