ABSTRACT
As documented herein, the history of anti-Black literacy campaigns is not new as they parallel the evolution of White supremacy and have evolved over centuries to present, privilege, and protect Whiteness. This chapter extends the history of Black literacy access counternarrative to the present as it interrogates how “powerful brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era’s racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people” (Kendi, 2016, p. 9). Among all school subjects, reading has been a political football not just in schools but also in society writ large. Returning to the anti-Black racism and ideology of White supremacy that spawned Black enslavement and chattel slavery of Black people, artifacts, documents, and events are examined that further contextualize the history of anti-Black literacy. The APA publicly has admitted the organization’s past support of scientific racism and White supremacy, presented a detailed chronology of its past racist actions, acknowledged their history of dismissive actions toward Black achievement and Black scholarship, taken actions in self-interest that harmed people of color, and proposed steps to ameliorate systemic racism. Importantly, the apology, chronology, and resolution are shared as they buffer the lack of responsiveness among literacy researchers.
