Even though she spoke very well, she wasn’t given the opportunity to have an education like the whites.

None of this is to say that she shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to learn. Clearly she should have. Education was important back then, too. But look at it this way: when she was free, she finally did have the opportunity to learn to read and write. But she didn’t avail herself of the opportunity – At that point, it was a choice she made, not one forced upon her by the man. I’m not depreciating her or her contributions, you understand, but she obviously didn’t find it important enough to go through the work of learning at that point in her life.

She was a slave. Slaves were never taught to read and write in fear they would learn too much.

website: http://www.sojournertruth.org/