In June 1862, less than six months after Union troops captured the Sea Islands of South Carolina, Northern missionaries Laura M. Towne and Ellen Murray established the Penn School on St. Helena Island. It was the first school in the South founded specifically to educate formerly enslaved people, providing literacy, vocational training, and civic education to thousands of freedmen during and after the Civil War. The school, named after Quaker activist William Penn, became a model for freedmen's education and a vital center of Gullah culture and community life.

The Penn School is a recurring subject in Southern and African American literature, appearing in memoirs, historical novels, and poetry that celebrate the transformative power of education. The school's legacy has been preserved by the Penn Center, which continues to inspire writers and artists who explore the Gullah heritage and the history of Reconstruction. The school's story has been told in works by authors such as Toni Morrison and others who examine the role of education in Black liberation.