Narratives of public education in the early United States generally describe three phases: before the United States even existed, the primary role of education was religious literacy. Around the time of the American Revolution and the decades after the role of education shifted toward political necessity, with founders believing that a republic could not survive without an educated citizenry capable of self-government. And then what we think of as “public” education, that was funded and standardized, began in the 1830s with what was called the Common School Movement. The common narrative describes a public system designed to allow people to gain knowledge and access to advancement in their lives.
Throughout this narrative arc, what’s often left out is the role race has always played at the root of education in America. And that’s what the new book, “America Grammar: Race, Education, and the Building of a Nation” explores in great detail. It makes the case that the exploitation of Black and Indigenous people played an essential role in building American education systems all the way back to this country’s founding. It lays out how profits from slavery and the seizure of native lands underwrote classrooms for white students and funds from the U.S. War Department developed native boarding schools. We talk with its author to dig into this aspect of American history.
Guest:
Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, Professor of Education and African and African American Studies at Harvard University
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