Although the percentage of illiterates in the country fell from 20 percent to 17 percent between 1870 and 1880, the total number rose from 5.7 million to 6.2 million. They were concentrated in the South, which had 65 percent of the country’s illiterates. In the South as a whole, 37 percent of the population was illiterate, with a high of 54 percent in South Carolina. Much of this was a legacy of slavery, since the rate of illiteracy among black people was 75 percent.
