Illiteracy 1860–1900

Updates from the North and South in 2025

W.E.B. DuBois will always be known first and foremost as an educator. His role as a historian, and a sociologist in the earliest days of the 20th century will characterize how his journey reflects our own as we sought an education in a very diverse landscape.

As a black intellectual who often had an opportunity to influence how others felt about what it meant to be black in America and around the world. I wonder what motivated him to teach, to describe and what it felt like to want to tailor the message to an audience that was ever changing.

I, like a lot of people love history and story tellers and perhaps most importantly I love the back story. Not just who was the first and last or why they came to prominence but their personal story.

So when my Medium friends talk about black history and gear up for February, I am both inspired and intrigued. I see it as a challenge to learn new things and to ask more questions. What’s behind the veil? I like being introduced to new ideas and new concepts and new ways of seeing things over time.

When I graduated from a racially integrated public high school in New York City, I attended a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Born in 1954, the wave of the impact of the importance of education for black students took on a new trajectory. A pioneer some would say, but certainly not the first or the last.