When I was 16 my father introduced me to Freedom Road by Howard Fast and my life changed. It is a book about a community in the South during the Reconstruction period (the era after the civil war when the north was punishing the south for the war). The community of former slaves and poor whites work together to create a flourishing town with educated children, and even a congressmen. But as the North decides to stop their efforts to create equality outside people come in and in an apocalyptic moment burn the community and all of its members to death ending the era of peace and prosperity.
Yes this is a book about equality, and yes it is about race. But the thing about this book that changed my life was how it showed to me more than I had every before seen that education is power. That what the people bringing down the people feared and hated most was the fact the the blacks and poor whites were lifting themselves up through learning and college education. For the first time I truly realized what my goals were really for, and what they meant. That I didn't want to go to college just so I could get a good job but so I would never be under the power of others because I didn't know how to learn.
This is a great (and rather obscure) book that I think every one should read. Look for it and check it out! I read it every time I started to hate school and all the work I had to do, it reminded me just what my education meant, and why I needed to stick with it.
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