Critical Literacy for Racial Justice in U.S. History Textbooks

• In Event: Critical Literacy for Racial Justice: Cultivating Equity Through Intersectionality

Abstract

Critical literacy affords an unprecedented opportunity to examine the history and legacy of racism and how it has operated in our lives: approached, assessed, codified, conceived, defined, disseminated, legislated, practiced, promoted, and researched. As articulated by Freire, critical literacy encompasses reading the world and the word, and “a certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it by means of conscious, practical work (Freire & Macedo, 1987, p. 35). Further, he notes, critical literacy should “explicate the validity of different types of … worldviews” (Freire, 1987, p. 53).

In this presentation, the conceptual and conscious ethos in U. S. history textbooks is interrogated to unmask why, and how issues of anti-Black racism are presented, specifically descriptions and discussions of chattel slavery among people of African descent in the United States. Admittedly, this is not a new concern for over a century Black scholars Cooper (1892), DuBois (1903), and Woodson (1933), among others have voiced their concerns. The current historical moment is ripe for responses foregrounded in critical literacy and racial justice to address why sanitized histories exists and how they are sustained.

Drawing on critical theorizing (critical race theory) and methodology (critical race policy analysis), I examine the historical contexts influencing and used in the descriptions, discussions, pictures, and presentations of chattel slavery and anti-Black racism as depicted in U. S. history textbooks. Findings indicate a conscious and sustained effort to portray US history as celebration of American exceptionalism, guiltlessness, and patriotism, while simultaneously absolving the founding fathers of their role in the enslavement of Black people and southern whites of Jim/Jane Crow laws and policies following the Civil War. In 2021, several states have enacted laws to codify an inaccurate and narrow history of anti-Black racism and enslavement. Snyder (2021) identifies the phenomenon underpinning the legislation as reminiscent of memory laws defines as: “government actions designed to guide public interpretation of the past... by asserting a mandatory view of historical events, by forbidding the discussion of historical facts or interpretations...” (np) and warns of its corrosive effects of state sanctioned laws that authorize a select version of history. A key component of each law is to allegedly protect the feelings of white students who might feel embarrassment, guilt, resentment, or trauma if a more accurate history is revealed.

This study extends our understanding of how groups use political clout and position to obfuscate the history of anti-Black racism and encourages us to critical literacy for racial justice.

Author

• Arlette I. Willis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign