[Gondring]

He taught a class, and yes it was sponsored by the church. (But if you know so much about this, surely you recall that Jackson sent funds himself from the field back to Lexington for the school.)

So what if black sunday schools were common throughout the South? Why would that diminish the fact that it was a very different situation from what is often portrayed in Northern grade schools today? It only illustrates my point more.

And yes, it was for both free and slaves...again, even slaves were taught (which conflicts with what was taught to me in grade school). And the sources I have seen have pretty clearly indicated that reading WAS taught...else no mention would be made of him violating laws against teaching blacks to read! Where are you getting your claim?

[Non-Sequitur]

Byron Farwell wrote an excellent biography on Jackson published in 1992. We know that reading was not taught during the class because Jackson, being a methodical man, taught the class from a syllabus that he designed and a copy of which survived, and reading was not on the agenda. The class itself did come under criticism from some local residents who threatened to go to the authorities and file charges. Those charges were for illegal assembly - it was illegal for slaves to assemple or be assembled - and not for teaching slaves to read.