Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education

From bestselling author Celeste Headlee, an urgent and eye-opening story of the women who risked everything to ensure a generation of Black Americans had the right to read.

In the waning days of the antebellum South, millions of African Americans were suddenly released from enslavement. But they soon realized that “freedom” was not free; they were subject to hundreds of laws aimed at preventing them from voting and, in many cases, learning. Were it not for the work of an exceptional group of...