American Grammar: Race, Education, and the Building of a Nation – A Harvard Professor's History of Antiblackness and Structural Inequality

by Jarvis R. Givens

A new history of US education through the nineteenth century that rigorously accounts for Black, Native, and white experiences; a story that exposes the idea of American education as “the great equalizer” to not only be a lie, but also a myth that reproduces past harms.

Education is the epicenter of every community in the United States. Indeed, few institutions are as pivotal in shaping our lives and values than public schools. Yet the nature of schooling has become highly politicized, placing its true colors on full display—a battleground where clashes over free speech and book bans abound, and where the suppression of knowledge about race, gender, and sexuality have taken center stage. Political forces are waging a war on academic freedom, raising serious questions. What gets taught, how, by whom, and who gets to decide? Yet, how might our perception of this reality shift when we recognize such battles as expressions of a relationship between race, power, and schooling as old as the country itself?

Access and equity in public education have long been discussed and attempts to address the educational debts owed to historically oppressed groups have taken the form of modern innovations and promises of future improvement. Yet the past plays an equally significant role in structuring our present reality—and in the case of our education system, there is a dark, unexamined history that continues to influence how schools forge our world.

Harvard University professor Jarvis R. Givens, an expert in the fields of American Educational History and African American Studies, draws on his own personal experiences and academic expertise to unveil how the political-economic exploitation of Black and Indigenous people played an essential role in building American education as an inequitable system premised on white possession and white benefit. In doing so, he clarifies that present conflicts are not merely culture wars, but indeed structural in nature. American Grammar is a revised origin story that exposes this legacy of racial domination in schooling, demonstrating how the educational experiences of Black, white, and Native Americans were never all-together separate experiences, but indeed relational, all part of an emergent national educational landscape. Givens reveals how profits from slavery and the seizure of native lands underwrote classrooms for white students; how funds from the US War Department developed native boarding schools; and how classroom lessons socialized students into an American identity grounded in antiblackness and anti-Nativeness, whereby the substance of schooling mirrored the very structure of US education.  

In unraveling this past, Givens provides more honest language for those working to imagine and build a truly more egalitarian future for all learners and communities, and especially those most vulnerable among us.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Education, Politics, Race, American History, African American

464 pages, Hardcover

Published October 14, 2025

About the author

Jarvis R. Givens is Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Jennifer Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repetitive but informative.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

NPR recommended this book as part of a list for US 250. While the thesis is interesting (history of the US education system to establish racial stratification between white, Native American, and Black people), I found the writing repetitive and overly-oriented toward other PhD researchers.

[haleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was definitely very informative and i learned a lot but i’d say it was more focused on the advent of mission schools and the role of slavery in the 5 tribes/the subsequent impact of emancipation versus how it was presented as being on how mission and segregated schools lead to modern education in america and the disparities within it.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thoroughly researched.

[Sarah]

I am enjoying this and am learning a lot, but I’ve got too many other books going right now. Will come back to it next year.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Grammar offers a compelling historical examination of how race and schooling shaped the very logic of America’s nation-building. Givens argues “grammar” functions as more than language rules, it reflects a racialized structure long defined by whose knowledge counts and whose humanity is affirmed. His archival research is thorough and illuminating, especially in tracing how educational systems institutionalized antiblackness under the guise of civic formation. At times, the prose can feel dense and a bit dry, particularly in the more theory-heavy sections, however, it’s an important and intellectually rigorous read that deepens the understanding of our nation’s educational inequalities.

[Savannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is somewhere between a 3-3.5⭐ for me. I won't say that I knew a lot about how America based it's educational standards on racism and exclusionism, but it wasn't hard to deduce. This gave insight on to just how .....insane? the way educational systems were created.

We know that America did the Natives dirty, but this gave me more background on "Indian" Schools and how messed up they really were. I learned about some schools that I had never heard of in places I wouldn't have thought would've had them so that was eye opening.

I think the most eye opening part though was how anti-black Native American communities were and how they disparaged mixed race/biracial kids for being mixed with black. Like.....that's crazy work. Anti-blackness is always at the root of the issue and it's not playing oppression olympics to point it out.

Minorities in this country have been done dirty and are continuing to be done dirty but I don't think America can change until we honestly acknowledge the root of those issues which seems to be anti-blackness! So much of the systems/processes this country is built on, were straight up created to exclude black people -> other minorities by proxy, no matter how much it seems like that isn't the case. Almost everything has historical ties to racism which is crazy to realize.

I plan to do more reading on Native history in America as well as my usual "America sucks" non fiction, but this one didn't cross 3⭐ territory because it was repetitive. A lot of the same points brought up over and over, sometimes 2x in a row in the same section. Apparently the author turned this 5 chapter idea into a whole book so that explains it...

But yeah, if you want to learn how education got exclusionary? This is a good starting point.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

To those who bemoan that "everything has to be about race", the truth is that yes, every aspect of society in America is steeped in racism. We have to acknowledge the necessity of reckoning with our nation's relationship with African Americans and Indigenous people in order to properly understand the achievement gaps and inequities in our present day. This text is thoroughly researched, exposing the deep rooted racism embedded in our educational system. This book also brought to mind the very relevant and timely idea that the law is a social construct. That legal or illegal action is dependent on the times and on our retrospective views of history. If an act is legal, does that make it right? Is breaking an unjust law a righteous act?

I recommend this book for those interested in understanding the history of American education.

[Jess Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phrases I never want to see used again after finishing this book:

“For indeed….”
“Readers will recall”
“As referenced in part/chapter….”
“It is important to note”

Don’t get me wrong, the information in this was really solid and helpful, but the writing style was that of a senior undergrad in the history department that believes they are FAR more intelligent than they are. The writing honestly distracted me from the information being provided, and I don’t feel like the commentary or explanations really added anything.

At time, this book felt very repetitive simply because the commentary for almost every section read the exact same way. If this had been an account without analysis, I think it would have been better.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very educational book. it is about getting equal education for everyone. It talks about having people not be in slavery anymore and native American going to schools and learning. And it wants to first people who went to these schools to go out and become teachers themselves. In those times it was met with resistence for everyone to get an education. President Garfield did not like that races could be left out of education. He considered education to help rebuild the country post war.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening discussion of the role of education in the history of the United States. The use of education to meet goals other than education provides an interesting backdrop to the state of modern education. As a resident of a school district taken over by the state, I wonder about some of the links.

[Liz W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much from this book, though it is a tome! All of this information should be common knowledge, but isn’t because US history courses don’t include all the facts. I had the great fortune of participating in a moderated conversation with author Jarvis Givens this week. He is one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but repetitive. In the « Acknowledgments » section the author mentions that the book grew « unexpectedly, from five to sixteen chapters ». I’m not sure that was a good thing. He seemed to be making the same points, albeit good points, over and over. Still worth a read.

[Tj Palomo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up as an NPR recommendation. Considered the premise interesting but was continually dismayed by the repetition of self referencing. Continually referring to the book itself to a point where it bordered on narcissistic.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

NEVER STOP EDUCATING YOURSELF. walking away from this book with so much more knowledge than i came in with. it felt like a documentary on paper if that makes sense

[Lucy Marincel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very well researched.