
They Gave Us the Bible, But Took Away the Words
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Why I Don’t Trust People Who Don’t Read
I’ve always felt like reading saved me. It gave me language when I didn’t have the words. It gave me quiet when the world was loud. It gave me mirrors I didn’t know I needed. And the deeper I started diving into our history, the more I understood why they never wanted us to read in the first place.
Literacy Was Our First Revolution
Let’s be real: they handed us the Bible, but made it illegal for us to know how to read it. They preached obedience but feared comprehension. There were actual laws in the 1800s across the South that made it a crime to teach enslaved Black people to read or write. Why? Because they knew literacy was power. Language gave us the ability to question, to organize, to imagine freedom. And they couldn’t have that.
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." — Frederick Douglass
Fast forward to "freedom," and Black children were still pushed into underfunded schools, handed torn-up books written in from decades before. Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 was supposed to end segregation in schools, but the reality was much messier. Integration didn’t mean equity. And even now, you can drive across town and see the difference between a school in a Black neighborhood and one in a white one. That didn’t just happen by accident.
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education." — Martin Luther King
Through all of this, Black brilliance never stopped. Writers like Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, and Ida B. Wells wrote against the grain. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gwendolyn Brooks crafted poems that painted our joys and struggles with unmatched clarity. James Baldwin? That man held up a mirror to America and dared it to look at itself. I think that’s why I love him so much. He didn’t write for comfort. He wrote for truth.

When the Curriculum Starts to Disappear
Black literature, journalism, and essays have always been acts of resistance. But so many of these voices were discredited, silenced, or tucked away in the shadows because they didn’t fit the neat little version of history that the mainstream wanted to tell.
And now? I feel like we’re watching the same cycle repeat. English and writing are no longer required in some curriculums. Teachers are being told to water down history. Whole lessons are being cut because they make people "uncomfortable." They are whitewashing our past while our kids sit in classrooms with censored books and cut-down truths. And no one seems to be saying enough.
"To be Black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage." — James Baldwin
What happens to a generation that never learns how to tell its own story?
This is why I read. This is why I write. This is why this space exists.
Reading still matters. Our stories still matter. And I don’t care how corny it sounds! I don’t trust systems that want to take that from us.

A Note Before You Go?
I know I speak with fire, but it’s because I care so deeply. I’ve seen how powerful reading can be. I’ve felt it in my own life, the way a book can crack something open in you, can give you answers, or at least better questions. I’ve also seen what it looks like when education becomes more about preparing us for obedience than expansion. When school starts to feel like training for capitalism, not liberation. That’s part of why I wrote another piece in this series: "The Day I Realized That School Wasn't About Learning." Because that realization changed everything.
But even with all the harm, I still believe in what school could be. I believe in what learning can become. If we let it, education can be healing. Reading can still raise up whole generations. We deserve classrooms that nurture curiosity, not compliance. We deserve stories that tell the truth. We deserve the chance to think for ourselves, feel deeply, and grow wildly.
That’s what I’m building here. Not a school. Not a sermon. But a space. A place where we don’t have to shrink to fit someone else’s version of "smart." Where we get to feel proud of our voice, our words, our stories.
So don’t stop reading. Don’t stop asking questions. Don’t stop telling the truth, even when it feels like the whole world wants you quiet.