While reading nightjohn, I noticed that it was a big deal if slaves could read or write. As I researched, I realized that it was a big deal if slaves knew how to read and write because white people in the south thought that slaves were not people and don’t deserve the same rights as white people. Southerners also thought that if a slave knew how to read and write, it could affect the slave system. In many states, they passed laws saying that anyone who taught slaves how to read or write would be sentenced in court. While I was researching, I came across a law passed by North Carolina making it illegal to teach slaves how to read or write, and that it was a typical law being passed in the south. This North Carolina law states; Those who were
