Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read. Part 3: Racism and Segregation

Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read. Part 3: Racism and Segregation

Why Johnny Can't Read. Part 3: Racism and Segregation

The United States of America, legendary land of opportunity, has never come fully to grips with systematically denying opportunity to a significant portion of its population. I am talking, of course, of our African American population, brought here in literal chains and held in metaphorical chains ever since. One of the links of these chains has been the denial of  literacy.
Any school child can tell you the story of how slave holders denied the slaves access to literacy out of fear that a slave who could read would be harder to control. The fear was well founded, of course. Literacy is the enemy of tyranny. Literacy opens up the world to all people. Some slaves managed to become literate, of course, including Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, and one of the leading American intellectuals of the 19th Century.

Woman arrested for trying to read a book in public library, Albany, GA, 1962

What may not be as obvious is how the denial of literacy continued after the Civil War ended slavery. The South, determined to maintain a system that favored white over black, instituted a series of Jim Crow laws intended to segregate all aspects of public life. So we had separate public restrooms, separate hotels, separate restaurants, separate seating on buses, and, of CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read. Part 3: Racism and Segregation