American Grammar: Race, Education, and the Building of a Nation

This intricate and erudite study by Harvard historian Givens (Fugitive Pedagogy) explores the racist origins of the U.S. education system, finding that Black, white, and Native children’s educations in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not merely “unequal” but actually interdependent and “relational.” Through rigorous research, Givens surfaces a vast web of material and ideological connection. He spotlights the ways in which profits from slavery and the seizure of Native land underwrote white students’ educational expenses, and notes that the era’s curricula served to create a “national white identity” while alienating Native and Black children from their own cultures. He also uncovers deeper, thornier interconnections between government, education, and race, such as how white-run schools in Choctaw territory served as hubs for government-run tribal “enrollment and allotment” programs, which sought to “assimilate” Native people by forcing them onto individual plots of land; as well as how, before their forced removal, the Five Southern Tribes attempted to appease and assimilate with their white neighbors by enacting “anti-literacy” laws banning the education of Black people. Marvelously complex and expansive, this paints a troubling picture of how government-run education has served as a powerful apparatus of state control and racial domination in U.S. history. (Oct.)