Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
The Floating Freedom School, a classroom anchored out in the river
1847
Mississippi River off East St. Louis, Illinois
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Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Missouri made it a crime in 1847 to teach Black people to read or write, which shut the school John Berry Meachum had been running in the basement of his St. Louis church. Meachum bought a steamboat, fitted it out with benches, tables and a library, and anchored it in the middle of the Mississippi, where state law did not reach and federal jurisdiction did. Free and enslaved students were rowed out to class. After he died in 1854 a former pupil, John R. Anderson, kept the school running into the 1860s.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: approximate area
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