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Even though it was illegal to do so, there were slave owners who taught may of their slaves to read and write.
If one slave ( usually a free man, who had been captured and sold into slavery or a house slave who had been taught or just managed to teach himself somehow ) could read and write, he would secretly teach others how to.
I'm NOT claiming that it was all instantaneous, nor that suddenly great schools fro negros popped up like mushrooms after constant rain; however, your claim and Foote's are inaccurate. Yours more than his.
For starters, I highly recommend you read : ARISTOCRATS OF COLOR, by Willard B. Gatewood and OUR KIND OF PEOPLE, by Lawrence Otis Graham.
Booker T. Washington was born in 1856, as a slave. Yet not only could he read and write, he graduated from college and was hardly the exception!
What you neglect to remember ( or perhaps even know ), is that many whites didn't graduate from grammar school back then, let alone go high school, withe even fewer going to college !
After the Civil War, negros raised money to build schools and hire teacher...often going without to do so. IT USED TO BE VERY IMPORTANT AND MEAN A GREAT DEAL TO ALL OF THEM, TO HAVE EVEN A BIT OF EDUCATION!
There's a very interesting silent, from the very early teens, written by, acted by, directed by, produced by, and filmed by negros! These films were called "RACE MOVIES" and were made into the talkie era. I've seen many of them and not only are they interesting, they're VERY good!
One of these films dealt with education and a woman teacher's tenacious endeavors to raise some much needed money for her grammar school.
There have been/still are great schools, medium schools and lousy schools all across this nation which every child, no matter what race, sex, and religion has and does go to.
And as an aside, some elite boarding schools, sans AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, have admitted negros to their classes, for most of the 20th century, if not earlier.
Ever hear of Madame C.J. Walker? If not....go cfind out about her!
No, she never went to college, married ( for the first time at 14 ), but she could read, write, and do math. Not only that, but she became the first female, self made many multi millionaire! She was born in 1867, the first member of her family to be born free, and she was smart as a could be.
I post FACTS; Foote, originally just a writer of fiction, wrote about his opinions, based on a bit of fact and a whole LOT of bleeding hearted opinion/bias/generalization.
You are picking and choosing a few individuals, and not addressing four million, whose ignorance we are dealing with today.
And to compare whites who didn’t go to school, with blacks in those days, is ridiculous - the whites had solid backgrounds embedded in their white culture, which made up greatly for any lack of formal education.
You seem to have a real problem with ‘affirmative action’. I don’t blame you - it’s always been a mistake. But it was an attempt to remedy the very original problems that I have been trying to explain.
I think Shelby Foote was an extremely thoughtful person who was able, in an extraordinary way, to see both sides of an issue.
You seem to be full of personal resentment about something that I can’t figure out - and I’m really not interested in communicating any further with someone who’s first line in a communication is a juvenile
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Good Night, Sir.