Williams, Heather. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Summary
This book examines the centrality of literacy for African Americans during slavery, during the Civil War, and in the first decades of freedom. Contrary to scholarship that has emphasized the role of the 'American Missionary Association'' and white Northerners''', Williams argues that African Americans placed education on a short list of priorities (land ownership, suffrage and equal treatment) and initiated the educational movement in the South. African Americans invested great faith in the ability of literacy to first enable them to escape from slavery and make freedom meaningful during emancipation. The right to education was at the core of their struggle. They demanded education and built schools, taught, paid tuition and worked to garner additional resources''. ''Williams writes: “They went to extraordinary lengths to gain this literacy: in slavery, they defied laws and disobeyed owners; in freedom, they sacrificed scarce materials and their personal safety.” (202) African Americans thus launched the educational movement in the South that led to the establishment of public schools systems that not only accommodated black students but also white students.

James D. Anderson argues that this movement was co-opted by White industrialists and philanthropists, transforming black education from a liberatory endeavor to one that served the interest of capitalism and the labor force.

See also: William Reese, America's Public Schools;