Susie King Taylor

Susie King Taylor was born in 1848. She was in Savannah, Georgia. She was a slave and was not allowed an education. Black women taught her how to read and write. She taught other African Americans when she was 14 years old. In 1862 she moved to Port Royal Island off the coast of South Carolina. There her husband joined the First South Carolina Volunteers, an all-black army .The army was made up of former slaves from the Sea Islands was one of the first African-American military units. They needed medical help. Susie was working in her husband's military company, even though she had no training. She was the first black army nurse. She worked on the battlefield for four years. Other women joined the army as nurses. Other people went for the job like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. Her husband died at the end of the Civil War. She moved north to Boston, Massachusetts. There she met and married Russell Taylor. She died in 1912.

http://longman.awl.com/garraty/primarysource_15_2.htm
http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/publisher/hist/blkwmmem.htm
http://www.womensmemorial.org/BBH1998.html
http://www.ugrr.org/ugrr/civil/cw-ess7.html

Picture from "Books of Black Heroes Great Women in the Struggle"

1999, by Alberto, fourth grade

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