They Call Me Teach: Lessons in Freedom

In this stirring and powerfully illustrated story, an enslaved young man uses his ability to read and write to educate others in the pursuit of freedom.

Back inside the store
I write up receipts
for Master’s deliveries
for Master’s orders
In ’tween
I write up a receipt
for her freedom

The young man known as Teach secretly learned to read, write, and use numbers growing up alongside the master’s son. And although on this Southern plantation these are skills he can never flaunt, Teach doesn’t keep them to himself: In the course of a week, he’ll teach little ones the alphabet in the corner stall of a stable and hold a moonlit session where men scratch letters in the dirt. He’ll decipher a discarded letter bearing news of Yankee soldiers and forge a pass for a woman hoping to buy precious time on a perilous journey north. And come Sunday, Teach will cross the swamp to a hidden cabin, reading aloud to the congregation God’s immortal words to the pharaoh: Let my people go.