Susie King Taylor was a Gullah-Geechee hero of education. Born into slavery in August of 1848, Taylor was forced into plantation labor during her first seven years of life. In 1855, she was permitted to move in with her grandmother- a free woman.

Despite the horrific restrictions of her time preventing people of color from learning to read or write, she was introduced to literacy during her time at two illegal schools conducted by other Black women of nineteenth-century Savannah.

In 1862, she and her uncle (along with many others) escaped to St, Simons Island, which the Union occupied at the time. At merely fourteen years old, Susie King Taylor became the first African American teacher to openly utilize her literacy to benefit other Black children in Georgia.

Taylor went on to marry Edward King, a Black officer of the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment and kept the ball rolling as she taught his fellow soldiers how to read and write. One of her memoirs details that in her spare time, she “ … learned to handle a musket very well … and could shoot straight and often hit the target.”

After some time spent serving the Union, joining a Women’s Regiment, and moving to live out her days in Boston while working as a domestic housekeeper, Taylor published the following in her memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers:

“What a wonderful revolution! In 1861 the Southern papers were full of advertisements for ‘slaves,’ but now, despite all the hindrances and ‘race problems,’ my people are striving to attain the full standard of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of instances have succeeded. Justice we ask — to be citizens of these United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be polluted.”

May the legacy of Susie King Taylor continue to serve as a beacon to young Black women of the twenty-first century.