SUSIE BAKER KING TAYLOR (1848-1912) was born a slave at a plantation in Liberty County, Georgia as Susan Ann Baker. In 1855, as a 7 year old child in Savannah, Georgia, where there were strict laws against formal education of Black people, Baker attended two secret schools taught by Black women. By 1860 she had been taught everything these two educators could offer. She soon became a skilled reader and writer.
In 1862 at the age of 14, living with her uncle's family and other Blacks on Union-occupied St. Simon's Island, word of her knowledge and intelligence spread among the Army officers on the island. Five days after her arrival she was offered books and school supplies by Commodore Louis Goldsborough if she agreed to organize a school for the children on St. Simon's Island. Baker accepted the offer and became the first Black woman teacher to openly instruct former slaves in Georgia. She taught children during the day and adults at night.
Baker was also the first Black woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experience. It was privately published as a book in 1902, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, later published in 1999 as ["A Black Woman's Civil War Civil Memoirs"]
