“Not a thousand years ago it was illegal to teach a slave to read.  Not a thousand years ago, the Supreme Court decided that separate  could not be equal.  And today, as we sit here, no one is learning anything in this country.  You see a nation which is the leader of the rest of the world, that had to pay the price of that ticket, and the price of that ticket is we’re sitting in the most illiterate nation in the world.  THE MOST ILLITERATE NATION IN THE WORLD.  A monument to illiteracy.  If you doubt me all you have to do is spend a day in Washington.  I am serious as a heart attack.”

James Baldwin.  Black English: A Dishonest Argument.