For the next century and a half, access to literacy became for the slaves a hallmark of their humanity and an instrument of liberation, spiritual as well as physical. The relation between freedom and literacy became the compelling theme of the slave narratives, the great body of printed books that ex-slaves generated to assert their common humanity with white Americans and to indict the system that had oppressed them.

In the years since the abolition of slavery, the possession of literacy has been a cardinal value of the African-American tradition.

It is no accident that the first great victory in the legal battle over segregation was fought on the grounds of education -- of equal access to literacy.

Today, Blacks are failing to gain access to the new tools of literacy: the digital "knowledge economy." And while the dilemma that our ancestors confronted was imposed by others, this cybersegregation is, to a large degree, self-imposed.

The Government's latest attempt to understand why low-income African Americans and Hispanics are slower to embrace the Internet and the personal computer than whites -- the Commerce Department study "Falling Through the Net" -- suggests that income alone can't be blamed for the so-called digital divide. For example, among families earning $15,000 to $35,000 annually, more than 33 percent of whites own computers, compared with only 19 percent of African Americans -- a gap that has widened 64 percent over the past five years despite declining computer prices.

The implications go far beyond on-line trading and chat rooms. Net promoters are concerned that the digital divide threatens to become a 21st century poll tax that, in effect, disenfranchises a third of the nation. Our children, especially, need access not only to the vast resources that technology offers for education, but also to the rich cultural contexts that define their place in the world.

Today we stand at the brink of becoming two societies, one largely white and plugged in and the other Black and unplugged.

One of the most tragic aspects of slavery was the way it destroyed social connections.

In a process that the sociologist Orlando Patterson calls "social death," slavery sought to sever Blacks from their history and culture, from family ties and a sense of community. And, of course, de jure segregation after the Civil War was intended to disconnect Blacks from equal economic opportunity, from the network of social contacts that enable upward mobility and, indeed, from the broader world of ideas.

Despite the dramatic growth of the Black middle class since affirmative action programs were started in the late 60's, new forms of disconnectedness have afflicted Black America. Middle-class professionals often feel socially and culturally isolated from their white peers at work and in the neighborhood and from their Black peers left behind in the underclass. The children of the Black underclass, in turn, often lack middle-class role models to help them connect to a history of achievement and develop their analytical skills.

It would be a sad irony if the most diverse and decentralized electronic medium yet invented should fail to achieve ethnic diversity among its users. And yet the Commerce Department study suggests that the solution will require more than cheap PC's. It will involve content.

Until recently, the African-American presence on the Internet was minimal, reflecting the chicken-and-egg nature of Internet economics. Few investors have been willing to finance sites appealing to a PC-scarce community.

Few African Americans have been compelled to sign on to a medium that offers little to interest them.

And educators interested in diversity have repeatedly raised concerns about the lack of minority-oriented educational software.

C onsider the birth of the recording industry in the 1920s. Blacks began to respond to this new medium only when mainstream companies like Columbia Records introduced so-called race records, blues and jazz discs aimed at a nascent African-American market. Blacks who would never have dreamed of spending hard-earned funds for a record by Rudy Vallee or Kate Smith would stand in lines several blocks long to purchase the new Bessie Smith or Duke Ellington hit.

New content made the new medium attractive.

And the growth of Web sites dedicated to the interests and needs of Black Americans can play the same role for the Internet that race records did for the music industry.

But even making sites that will appeal to a Black audience can only go so far.

The causes of poverty are both structural and behavioral.

And it is the behavioral aspect of this cybersegregation that Blacks themselves are best able to address. Drawing on corporate and foundation support, we can transform the legion of churches, mosques and community centers in our inner cities into after-school centers that focus on redressing the digital divide and teaching Black history. We can draw on the many examples of Black achievement in structured classes to re-establish a sense of social connection.

The Internet is the 21st century's talking drum, the very kind of grass-roots communication tool that has been such a powerful source of education and culture for our people since slavery. But this talking drum we have not yet learned to play. Unless we master the new information technology to build and deepen the forms of social connection that a tragic history has eroded, African-Americans will face a form of cybersegregation in the next century as devastating to our aspirations as Jim Crow segregation was to those of our ancestors. But this time, the fault will be our own.

Copyright © New York Times News Service. All rights reserved.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University, is co-editor of Encarta Africana.