The Poison Tree: Conceptualizing the Spread of Scientific Racism During the Civil Rights Era

• In Event: Antiblackness and Black Mattering in K–12 Teaching

Abstract

Scholarly research in recent decades has unearthed the deep roots of racism in teaching and teacher education that affect students of color, problematizing intersectional forms of oppression, hidden curriculum, and the school-to-prison pipeline. As a result, teacher education programs now emphasize social justice awareness and coursework. However, systemic inequity still characterizes the experience of many minoritized students. Structural institutions in the U.S. continue to echo the sentiment of the white majority, implicitly presuming whites’ superiority to other races. This project traces the current problem to a group of segregationists who manipulated eugenic ideology to promulgate white supremacy in education during the Civil Rights Movement. A visual metaphor offers a perspective of scientific racism’s expansion across interconnected societal institutions.

Author

• Sage Wright, University of Florida