Following Nat Turner's rebellion in Virginia in 1839, southern state after southern state banned the education of African Americans, and anyone caught teaching African Americans could face prosecution. There was this concern that the ability to read and write led to rebellion. Frederick Douglass, his master's wife began to teach him how to read…she was a religious woman and she believed it was important for Frederick Douglass to learn to read the bible. Douglass later confessed that, to please his mistress, he memorized the words she taught him, but later taught himself to read and write while he worked as an apprentice…at the shipyards in Baltimore. When he returned to the eastern shore of Maryland, the ministry found out that he was literate, and encouraged him to conduct Sabbath Schools.

Now Frederick Douglass used that as an opportunity to teach slaves to read and write, especially to write, so they could forge passes to run away to freedom. The white population discovered what he was doing. He faced mob action, narrowly avoided severe punishment…he continued teaching classes, Sabbath schools, teaching wherever he could find a place…in the forest, under a tree, constantly under suspicion from the white population, having to move his classes from place to place to avoid capture or discovery.

Later Douglass recalled that of everything he did in his life, and we have to remember he was one of the greatest orators of his day, if not in American History: prolific writer, he held the highest appointed public post in Washington DC, he was a diplomat, he accomplished all of these wonderful achievements in his life. But he recalled that the best occupation he ever had was serving as a teacher in those Sabbath Schools on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Many of his students saw him later in life and thanked him for what he had done. And what's even more remarkable about Douglass teaching Sabbath School was that he was only 16 years old and a slave himself.

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