3 chapters across the catalog
A report from Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research reveals a long history of white supremacy being taught in American public education. Special correspondent Joey Chen highlights how historical figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Noah Webster used language that dismissed people of African descent. The study suggests that despite claims of anti-whiteness in schools, textbooks have historically reinforced racial hierarchies.
Historian Donald Yacovone discovered a collection of 3,000 old textbooks that consistently ignored the achievements of non-white Americans while portraying African Americans as incapable of learning. These books, some used as late as the 1940s and beyond, contained tropes about enslaved people that were reinforced by the outsized influence of Texas and California on the publishing industry. The damage from these educational materials is described as a "tough lesson to unlearn."
The Farmville teacher describes the extreme disparity between the Black Moton High School and the white Farmville High School, including the use of "tar paper shacks" as classrooms. He recounts how a Black principal refused to ask for new books to appear compliant to the white superintendent, forcing teachers to use shredded scraps. This "Boulet gatekeeping" is cited as a major internal obstacle to Black education.
