08/06/2025
In honor of her birthday, today we share the life of Susie King Taylor. Born into slavery in Georgia, she was able to attend to secret schools, allowing her to learn how to read and write. With the start of the Civil War, Taylor’s life would face challenges, but also many successes. In 1862, Susie escaped to freedom on a US Navy ship anchored near Fort Pulaski. After this escape, she became the first black teacher openly teaching Black Americans in the state of Georgia by creating a school for children on St. Simon’s Island. That same year, she married Edward King, an officer with the 33rd United States Colored Troops. As a nurse and teacher with the regiment, Susie served in and around the Charleston area for over four years. Once the war ended, she continued to teach and wrote her memoirs.
Her memoirs were published in 1902 and reflect her thoughts on slavery and the Civil War. She wrote “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.”
We remember Susie Taylor King and her efforts to teach Black men, women and children to read and write, providing many of them with a skill that they might otherwise never have learned.
Image: A portrait of Black teacher and nurse, Susie Taylor King, courtesy Library of Congress
