People

Dr. Charles Terry is a historian of education who received his PhD in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His work is interdisciplinary in nature, dealing with aspects of history, education, Black Studies, and philosophy. His research focuses on ways in which enslaved African Americans resisted modes of physical bondage to subvert the existing hegemonic slave-owning order to gain literacy. His dissertation entitled "A Rebellious Education: Enslaved African Americans and the Fight for Literacy" explores this topic. Moreover, he has historically traced the passage of major anti-literacy laws in the 18th and 19th Century American South in the wake of enslaved rebellions by literate leaders like Nat Turner and Cato, and demonstrated how the passage of these laws was a political response to the threat of literate enslaved peoples. Additional work, published in the book Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: Oral Histories of (Mis)Education Opportunities in Challenging Educational Achievement, focuses on the role of a twentieth century female African American pioneer in the Midwest.