Even in an era of multi-hyphenates, Chicago-native Dr. Eve L. Ewing’s achievements are exemplary: scholar, educator, cultural organizer, poet, playwright and comic book author to name a few. Her newest project is equally striking. Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, is a critical investigation of the ways the U.S. school system engenders racial inequality and social hierarchies. Focusing on the experiences of Black and Native Americans in this country, and entwining these two different yet equally destructive histories, unveils our oft-ignored national educational ethos and leads to the broader question of what is school, and schooling, for, and for whom?
This is a book about the stories the United States tells itself about Black and Native people, and the way that those stories uphold a racial hierarchy that shapes all of our lives—and about the roles of schools in perpetuating those stories.”
Dr. Eve L. Ewing, “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism”
Ewing details the variety of ways in which science, societal influences, governments, and political leanings shaped education overall from the founding of the United States to the current moment, offering an extensive discussion of the three pillars of American racism within our institutions of schooling: the premise of purported intellectual inferiority, the suggestion that there is more of a need for discipline and punishment, and, of course, economic subjugation. As repellent as this is, it has been the bedrock of much of this country’s educational philosophy and pedagogy of the last 150 years. The book also touches on the complicated ideas around intellectual giftedness—at least within the American educational system, which doesn’t take into account the full span of valuable abilities. We also judge educational success, life success, rather narrowly, which feeds into the false considerations of some as inferior, unteachable, or erasable. An even more repellent and vital thread is the school-prison nexus and how our society—what we consider civilization—has a carceral logic that creates the “dangerous person,” an assumptive categorizing that is difficult to erase.
This book would be important in any era, but especially now, with daily—hourly—actions designed to disenfranchise, dismantle and destroy, Ewing’s rigorous and incisive Original Sins inspires a national conversation we must have.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Mandana Chaffa
How long has this book been in the making? What and how has changed externally and within you that shifted either the emphasis or the end result?
Eve L. Ewing
I’ve become very grateful in reflecting recently how much the book came into being through the practice of teaching. I’ve been teaching courses on race and schooling for a decade now, and early on in designing my syllabi I felt strongly that my students didn’t really understand the history of schooling in this country if they didn’t understand the histories of schooling for Black people and schooling for Indigenous people specifically. After years of cobbling together readings and having the chance to discuss them with my amazing students, and wishing for a book that tied it all together, I eventually set out to write one. One thing that happened along the way was that my relationship with archives deepened, and although Ghosts in the Schoolyard also uses a lot of archives, I think I became more intentional and self-aware about that thread as part of my practice, in a way that I think is reflected in this book.
Mandana Chaffa
Among many truly horrific edicts, one particular line from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia felt especially ludicrous: “Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.” Even though there are far more harmful actions and statements that he made, this is one that annoyed me to no end when I consider the powerful poetry of the present day—your own, Evie Shockley, Danez Smith, Nicole Sealey, so many more, let alone the great Gwendolyn Brooks, June Jordan, Langston Hughes. Might we talk a bit about poetry and its importance in education and society?
Eve L. Ewing
I don’t know if I can speak to that broadly, but I know about why it’s important for me to include in a book like this; the book includes several excerpts and passages from poems. Even as I am grateful to have a relationship with many different forms and styles of writing, poetry remains a really important tool for me to reflect the innermost emotional truth of something, alongside factual or historic truths. It can pierce the veneer of understanding something only abstractly or theoretically; there are certain things we need to understand at our very core. Poetry helps with that.
Mandana Chaffa
Throughout the course of reading Original Sins, I’ve been reconsidering my own education, in public schools, private universities, even virtually through massive open online courses, both in the humanities as well as in business. You have a vast experience in a range of educational settings, from K-12, to community learning, to the collegiate and graduate levels. How has that informed this book, and equally, how has this intense scholarship altered your own pedagogical approach, as well as your own personal experiences as a student?
Eve L. Ewing
I certainly would not have written this book without that grounded experience. I feel really lucky that there is this intersection between my research and my practice; I teach about teaching. That means that I get a chance to reflect on how the political commitments that emerge from my work can inform my pedagogy. It’s definitely changed the way I think about things like grades, assessment, and classroom community. Otherwise the hypocrisy is just a little too glaring—you feel silly teaching about Freire and then being obsessed with deducting points or whatever.
Mandana Chaffa
So of course, now I’m going to ask you to simplify something impossibly complex. If we could get this book in the hands of every member of the government—and I think we should—what would you inscribe on the flyleaf as exhortation, as inspiration?
Eve L. Ewing
With all of my books, I decide what the message is going to be when I sign it, and then I write the same thing for everyone, more or less. When I thought about what that might be for this book, I immediately thought of something my people say: tell the truth, shame the devil. So that’s what I’d write.
Mandana Chaffa
To use your own phrase at the end of this book: “Onward.” Despite what we’ve been seeing the last month, as I’ve been living deeply with Original Sins, I’m also “feeling dreamy and aspirational.” What would you like to imagine will be sparked by this book, and by the many conversations it will inspire?
Eve L. Ewing
That word, “onward,” is a loving homage to Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, one of my great mentors and teachers, who often closes a conversation by saying “onward” or “carry on.” My hope is that people will use the book as a launchpad for community conversations, coalition-building, and hard reflection. I hope that they will draw connections between history and the present, and move from discussion to action in the ways that feel most authentic and liberatory wherever they are.
NONFICTION
The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
By Eve L. Ewing
One World
February 11, 2025
