A chorus of Black student voices that renders a new story of US
education--one where racial barriers and violence are confronted by
freedom dreaming and resistance
Black students were forced to live and learn on the Black side of the
color line for centuries, through the time of slavery, Emancipation, and
the Jim Crow era. And for just as long--even through to today--Black
students have been seen as a problem and a seemingly troubled population
in America's public imagination.
Through over one hundred firsthand accounts from the 19th and 20th
centuries, Professor Jarvis Givens offers a powerful counter-narrative
in School Clothes to challenge such dated and prejudiced storylines.
He details the educational lives of writers such as Zora Neale Hurston
and Ralph Ellison; political leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune, Malcolm
X, and Angela Davis; and Black students whose names are largely unknown
but who left their marks nonetheless. Givens blends this multitude of
individual voices into a single narrative, a collective memoir, to
reveal a through line shared across time and circumstance: a story of
African American youth learning to battle the violent condemnation of
Black life and imposed miseducation meant to quell their resistance.
School Clothes elevates a legacy in which Black students are more than
the sum of their suffering. By peeling back the layers of history,
Givens unveils in high relief a distinct student body: Black learners
shaped not only by their shared vulnerability but also their triumphs,
fortitude, and collective strivings.
