Student Texts

Literacy as Resistance

The people pictured in these images were enslaved, but they learned to read and write. Many enslavers did not allow enslaved people to read or write. Enslavers knew that reading and writing were powerful tools that could lead to freedom. But these three people learned to read, and the books they wrote helped lead to the end of slavery.

Various

Grade Level: , ,
Text Type:
Topic:
Subject:
Social Justice Domain: , ,

This text is part of the Teaching Hard History Text Library and aligns with Key Concepts 5 and 8 and Essential Knowledge C and E.

Wheatley P
Phillis Wheatley was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry. Her enslavers taught her to read. Many enslavers said Black people were not as intelligent or creative as white people. They told these lies to justify slavery. Wheatley wrote in her poetry that she would prove them wrong.
–Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley 1773. 
Douglass daguerretotype
Frederick Douglass taught himself to read and write when he was enslaved. After he escaped slavery, he used his writing and his voice to tell others about the horrors of slavery.
–Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist, ca. 1865 – J. W. Hurn.
Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano learned to read while he was enslaved. When he was older, he wrote about his kidnapping from Africa and his life as an enslaved person in England and America. He fought against slavery and helped convince people that slavery was bad and should be ended.
–Gustavus Vassa, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.