White persons deeply interested in Negroes taught them regardless of public opinion and the law.  Dr. Alexander T. Augusta of Virginia learned to read while serving white men as a barber.[1] A prominent white man of Memphis taught Mrs. Mary Church Terrell’s mother French and English.  The father of Judge R.H.  Terrell was well-grounded in reading by his overseer during the absence of his master from Virginia.[2] A fugitive slave from Essex County of the same State was not allowed to go to school publicly, but had an opportunity to learn from white persons privately.[3] The master of Charles Henry Green, a slave of Delaware, denied him all instruction, but he was permitted to study among the people to whom he was hired.[4] M.W.  Taylor of Kentucky studied under attorneys J.B.  Kinkaid and John W. Barr, whom he served as messenger.[5] Ignoring his master’s orders against frequenting a night school, Henry Morehead of Louisville learned to spell and read sufficiently well to cause his owner to have the school unceremoniously closed.[6]

[Footnote 1:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 258.]

[Footnote 2:  This is based on the statements of Judge and Mrs. Terrell.]

[Footnote 3:  Drew, Refugee, p. 335.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid., p. 96.]

[Footnote 5:  Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 933.]

[Footnote 6:  Drew, Refugee, p. 180.]

The educational experiences of President Scarborough and of Bishop Turner show that some white persons were willing to make unusual sacrifices to enlighten Negroes.  President Scarborough began to attend school in his native home in Bibb County, Georgia, at the age of six years.  He went out ostensibly to play, keeping his books concealed under his arm, but spent six or eight hours each day in school until he could read well and had mastered the first principles of geography, grammar, and arithmetic.  At the age of ten he took regular lessons in writing under an old South Carolinian, J.C.  Thomas, a rebel of the bitterest type.  Like Frederick Douglass, President Scarborough received much instruction from his white playmates.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 410.]

Bishop Turner of Newberry Court House, in South Carolina, purchased a spelling book and secured the services of an old white lady and a white boy, who in violation of the State law taught him to spell as far as two syllables.[1] The white boy’s brother stopped him from teaching this lad of color, pointing out that such an instructor was liable to arrest.  For some time he obtained help from an old colored gentleman, a prodigy in sounds.  At the age of thirteen his mother employed a white lady to teach him on Sundays, but she was soon stopped by indignant white persons of the community.  When he attained the age of fifteen he was employed by a number of lawyers in whose favor he ingratiated himself by his unusual power to please people.  Thereafter these men in defiance of the law taught him to read and write and explained anything he wanted to know about arithmetic, geography, and astronomy.[2]