The pen is mightier than the sword and the ability to read opens up an entirely new world to someone who lacked that ability before.  That’s why the issue of Black literacy in the South has such an important history.  For Black citizens, it was a weapon of empowerment and rebellion, while for whites, it was the only tool that could destabilize their grip on power.  The ghosts of this fight live on today.  Derek W. Black lays out the long and complicated history of the subject in his book, “Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy.”  He details the lengths to which slave owners and governments went to limit Black access to education.  In our conversation we bring the issue into a modern context over how American history is taught in schools, the role of the federal Department of Education in providing access to quality education to all children and the seminal Brown v. Board of Education and its impacts to this day and into the future.