Susie Taylor
Encyclopedia
Susie Baker King Taylor (1848-1912) was the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 army nurse. As the author of "Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers", she was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experiences. She was also the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 to teach openly in a school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

 for former slave
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

s in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...


Biography

She was born in Liberty County
Liberty County, Georgia
Liberty County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 61,610. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 60,503...

 on August 6, 1848. When she was about seven years old, her owner allowed her to go to Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

 to live with her grandmother. Despite Georgia's harsh laws against the formal education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by black women. From them she gained the rudiments of literacy
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

, then extended her education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 with the help of two white youths, both of whom knowingly violated law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 and custom.

In April 1862, Baker and many other African Americans fled to St. Simons Island, occupied at the time by Union forces. Within days her educational advantages came to the attention of army officers, who offered to obtain book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s for her if she would organize a school. She thereby became the first black teacher for freed African American students to work in a freely operating freedmen's school in Georgia. She taught forty children in day school and "a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn to read, to read above anything else." She taught there until October 1862, when the island was evacuated.

While at the school on St. Simons Island, Baker married Edward King
Edward King
-Politicians:* Edward J. King , Governor of Massachusetts, 1979–1983* Edward King , UK MP for the Irish constituency of Roscommon, 1802–1806...

, a black noncommissioned officer in the Union forces. For three years she moved with her husband's and brothers' regiment, serving as nurse and laundress, and teaching many of the black soldiers to read and write during their off-duty hours. In 1866 she and Edward returned to Savannah, where she established a school for the freed children. Edward King died in September 1866, a few months before the birth of their first child. In 1867 she returned to her native Liberty County to establish another school. In 1868 she again relocated to Savannah, where she continued teaching freedmen for another year and supported herself through small tuition charges, never receiving aid from the northern freedmen's aid organizations.

In the 1870s King traveled to Boston as a domestic servant of a wealthy white family. While there she met and married Russell Taylor
Russell Taylor
Russell Taylor MBE is a British writer, journalist and composer. He is best known as half of the team that created the comic strip Alex. He studied at St Anne's College, Oxford...

. She remained in Boston for the rest of her life, returning to the South only occasionally. After a trip to Louisiana in the 1890s to care for a dying son, she wrote her Reminiscences, which were privately published in 1902. She died ten years later. She is buried next to her second husband at Mount Hope Cemetery in Roslindale Massachusetts.

Suggested Reading

  • Robert C. Morris, Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction: The Education of Freedmen in the South, 1861-1870 (Chicago
    Chicago
    Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

    : University of Chicago
    University of Chicago
    The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

    Press, 1981).

External links

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