The NAACP's Committee of Textbook and Current Literature Campaign to Ban Racist Textbooks

• In Event: Re-Educating the Mis-Educated: Taking Back Our Schools

Abstract

My paper examines the NAACP's Committee on Textbook and Current Literature campaign to ban racist history textoobks. From 1931-1939, the Committee on Textbook and Current Literature developed a pamphlet to counter the racist propaganda in American textbooks. In 1936, the NAACP hired Lawrence Reddick, a historian at Dillard University, to conduct a study of New York City textbooks and the Committee would submit the study to the Board of Education and to the publishing companies. In 1939, the NAACP created pamphlet titled Anti Negro Propaganda in School Textbooks that examined racist progranda in school textooks. The 20 page pamphlet was created for Boards of Education and NAACP members and liberals to ban racist textbooks. In spite of the efforts of the Committee on Textbooks and Current Literature they were unable to end racist propaganda in textbooks due to the nations commitment to white supremacy in textbooks, media, and popular culture.

Author

• David Canton, University of Florida