[AAACE-NLA] A Memorial Day Message for 2005

Thu May 26 11:26:28 EDT 2005

Hi Tom,

I sent this message to everyone in our state
association. Very impressive. Thanks!

Laurel

--- tsticht at znet.com wrote:

> Memorial Day 2005
> 
> Remembering the Literacy Teachers Who 
> Taught For the Union During the Civil War
> 
> Tom Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
> 
> "Outside of the Fort were many skulls lying about; 
> I have often moved them one side out of the path.
> The comrades and I would have wondered a bit
> as to which side of the war the men fought on,
> some said they were the skulls of our boys; some 
> said they were the enemies; but as there was no
> definite way to know, it was never decided which 
> could lay claim to them. They were a gruesome sight,
> those fleshless heads and grinning jaws, but by this
> time I had become used to worse things and did not
> feel as I would have earlier in my camp life.
> --Susie King Taylor, 1902 (in Lerner, 1972)
> 
> Suzie (Baker) King Taylor was born a slave in
> Savannah, Georgia in 1848. 
> She was raised by her grandmother who sent her and
> one of her brothers to 
> the home of a free women to learn to read and write,
> even though it was 
> against the law for slaves to learn to read and
> write.  As she explained in 
> her 1902 book, "We went every day with our books
> wrapped in paper to 
> prevent the police or white persons from seeing
> them." (Taylor in Lerner, 
> 1972)
> 
> During the Civil War the Union Army initiated the
> practice of enlisting 
> freed African-Americans. But it was soon apparent
> that there were problems 
> in using these men as soldiers. Among other
> problems,  it was difficult for 
> officers to communicate with illiterate former
> slaves. So promotion and 
> advancement in the army was difficult for the
> African-American soldiers. 
> Many of them blamed this situation on their lack of
> education. In response 
> to these needs, many officers initiated programs of
> education for the 
> former slaves. 
> 
> One officer, Colonel Thomas W. Higginson of the 33rd
> U. S. Colored Troops, 
> appointed the chaplain as the regimental teacher.
> Higginson reportedly saw 
> men at night gathered around a campfire, "spelling
> slow monosyllables out 
> of a primer, a feat which always commands all ears,
> " and he observed that, 
> 
> "Their love of the spelling book is perfectly
> inexhaustible,
> -they stumbling on by themselves, or the blind
> leading the 
> blind, with the same pathetic patience which they
> carry into 
> everything. The chaplain is getting up a
> schoolhouse, 
> where he will soon teach them as regularly as he
> can. 
> But the alphabet must always be a very incidental 
> business in a camp." (Cornish, 1952). 
> 
> One of the people whom the chaplain engaged in
> teaching soldiers of the 
> 33rd to read and write was Suzie King Taylor
> (Blassingame, 1965). She went 
> with the regiment to Florida where she reported that
> "I learned to handle a 
> musket very well while in the regiment and could
> shoot straight and often 
> hit the target. I assisted in cleaning the guns and
> used to fire them off, 
> to see if the cartridges were dry, before cleaning
> and re-loading , each 
> day. I thought this was great fun." (Taylor in
> Lerner, 1972, p. 101). 
> 
> According to Taylor, "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. 
> My husband taught some also when it was convenient
> for him. 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."
> (Taylor in Lerner, 1972)
> 
> Throughout the Civil War, thousands of teachers,
> some modestly paid and 
> many volunteers, worked often under very arduous
> conditions, such as 
> described above by Suzie King Taylor, to educate the
> newly freed slaves who 
> came to fight for the preservation of the United
> States of America. In just 
> the Union Army’s  Department of the Gulf (Louisiana,
> Mississippi, 
> Alabama,Texas) by 1864 there were 95 schools with
> 9,571 children and 2,000 
> adults being taught by 162 teachers. By the war’s
> end it was estimated some 
> 20,000 African-American troops had been taught to
> read "intelligently" 
> (Blassingame, 1965). 
> 
> No one knows how many adult literacy teachers gave
> their lives in the 
> course of their service to the education of those
> soldiers, both blacks and 
> whites, fighting for the preservation of the Union,
> during the Civil War. 
> But this Memorial Day we should remember their
> service to those they taught 
> to read and write, many of whom we can be certain
> did give their lives for 
> our Nation in the war that took more lives than all
> the wars from the 
> Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War combined. 
> 
> In all these wars, the literacy teachers were also
> there. Perhaps, contrary 
> to what the progressive Colonel Higginson thought,
> the alphabet should not 
> be considered just " an incidental business in a
> camp."  It may, instead, 
> be central to victory in wars. It may just be true
> that "the pen is 
> mightier than the sword." 
> 
> On May 30th let us remember the thousands of
> literacy teachers who have 
> taught hundreds of thousands of troops, the fallen
> and those who survived 
> their wars, how to wield the mightiest sword of
> victory – the alphabet!
> 
> References
> 
> Blassingame, J. W. (1965). The Union Army as an
> educational institution for 
> Negroes, 1862-1865. Journal of Negro Education, 34,
> 152-159. 
> 
> Cornish, D. T. (1952). The Union Army as a school
> for Negroes. Journal of 
> Negro history, 37, 368-382. 
> 
> Lerner, G. (Ed.) (1972). Black women in white
> America: A documentary 
> history. New York: Pantheon Books-Random house. 
> 
> Thomas G. Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
> 2062 Valley View Blvd.
> El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
> Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
> Email: tsticht at aznet.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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