Grounded in the Quaker sense of spiritual equality for all believers, and funded primarily by Friends in northern yearly meetings, more than two hundred Quaker women headed south to establish and/or teach in the first schools for contraband and former slaves during the Civil War and period of Reconstruction.What audacity prompted nineteenth-century Quaker women to befriend and teach blacks in areas where virulent racism had persisted for centuries? What were they hoping to accomplish?Author Linda Selleck's readable and well-documented work reveals the individual hardships and successes of the more visible leaders of these enterprises -- as well as issues of slavery and membership of blacks in monthly meetings faced within the Society of Friends itself.Women's Studies, Race Issues, Quaker History.