Literacy is Freedom By Bill Maxwell, Role Models Today Publisher and Columnist for the St. Petersburg Times From the St. Petersburg Times, “Real Life - Real Learning,” For good reasons, slave owners in the American South persuaded their legislators to pass a law prohibiting slaves from learning how to read. When abolitionists moved into an area to spread their subversive message of freedom for slaves, one of their first efforts was to establish a place where black chattel could learn to read.

In many nations, where strict Islamic laws are observed, women are treated as virtual slaves. The leaders in these nations ban women from attending school in an attempt to keep them ignorant and illiterate. The latest and best-known example of this practice occurs today in Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban government has renewed the Islamic code that shuts women out of public education.

These two examples of keeping reading away from entire segments of the population point to the power of literacy. To be literate… having the ability to read with understanding… is to be intellectually empowered.

And to be intellectually empowered is to start the long walk down the road to individual freedom.

People who possess individual freedom have discovered their own identities. They know where they are and can take accurate measure of their environment. Alex Haley, author of the best-selling novel Roots, said: “You can never enslave somebody who knows who he is.”

In the United States and elsewhere worldwide, scholars have shown a direct correlation between levels of literacy, wealth, poverty and the general quality of life. In America, for example, some of our poorest citizens live in urban ghettos and isolated rural enclaves where high school diplomas and college degrees are in short supply. Studies consistently show that income rises with the number of years people attend college.

Because of this reality, education, business, religious, civic and political leaders at all levels in America should put reading and literacy at the top of their agendas.

Literacy is especially important in this country because we are a democracy. Here, unlike in non-democratic nations, government wants and expects citizens to make good individual decisions. To do so, we must be literate and be able to comprehend the issues that are important to the greatest number of people over time.

I am especially concerned about the plight of America’s poor because the roaring economy has lulled many of us into believing that all parts of the population have enjoyed huge profits. The truth is that, because of high rates of illiteracy, poor communities have remained poor and, in some cases, have fallen even further behind. Right here in St. Petersburg, some neighborhoods have many people who cannot read or write, and these areas are blighted.

The future for these places is bleak because the citizens cannot fully participate in the government. They are not courted by elected officials because they are powerless. Many, having not completed high school, are not registered to vote. They lack a viable identity.

In my estimation, the Literacy Council of St. Petersburg is doing the most valuable work on this front locally. Virginia Gildrie, supervising tutor trainer for the council, has taught reading for nearly 30 years and often comments on the power of literacy to transform lives. She has seen people who lacked self-esteem because they could not read become better parents and grandparents and effective leaders in their communities.

Their lives change because they discover themselves through the efficacy of the printed word. Through the gift of reading, they learn that they do not have be victims of language. They become freed of the shame and embarrassment that come with the inability to read. They cast off dissembling. They stop feeling like the imposter.

One man, who owns a small lawn service, told me that after learning to read, he felt morally better. Why? I asked. “Because I stopped lying and pretending,” he said. “I can read on my own. I am an honest man now. I make more money, too, because I don’t have to pay somebody to read my contracts and other papers. I can read the newspaper and find extra work. I am free now.”

Indeed, he is. He knows who he is. He is empowered to deal with life on his own terms. No longer invisible, he now can participate in the decision-making process of his government.

“I am no longer a slave,” he said.

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