History of Reading News. Vol.XXII No.1 (1998:Fall)
by Bena R. Hefflin

White Supremacy in Children's Literature: Characterizations of African Americans, 1830-1900, by Donnarae MacCann. New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. Pp. 274. $60.00.

Donnarae MacCann leaves little to the imagination regarding the unsettling account of the white supremacy myth, related to characterizations of African Americans in 19th-century children's literature collections. This rich and comprehensive book describes "what society was doing to influence attitudes in books, and what books were like as they ex-tended the life-span of social attitudes" (p. xxxi) through literary, political, biographical, and institutional history. In the preface, she states, "I have looked at the white supre-macist civilization that produced a white supremacist chil-dren's literature, and documented the ideology of white racism as formulated for young reading audiences." If ever there was a text for cultural, social, and children's literature his-torians and professors of children's literature to invest time in and give serious attention to the portrayal of African Americans in children's literature, this is it.

MacCann's study is replete with examples of race prejudice, bigotry, and literary distortions made of African Americans by white men and women. The book also includes statements about African Americans and slavery that exemplify an ambivalent stance. The message communicated, however, by these men and women is consistently clear through the literature they wrote and published for children--African Americans were inferior, unintelligent, and childlike, and therefore did not deserve to be regarded as humans. They were to be caretakers to and for the white man. The way children's literature was used, as the primary instrument to enculturate white children with this message to continue the pattern of white supremacy, was absurd. The direct, cruel, and devastating reality of this message had an intoxicating effect on me.

Written in a chronological format, the book is divided into two parts, "The Antebellum Years" and "The Postbellum Years." In part one, MacCann explains how Antebellum white abolitionists, political commentators, and antislavery storytellers subscribed to writings that were ambivalent statements about and dehumanizing towards African Americans. Although the writers spoke against the brutal treatment of African Americans, their writings did not always convey this belief. Hypocrisy was ubiquitous. In turn, these dehumanizing caricatures showed up in their children's book writings, further reinforcing distortions about the African Americans' behavior, culture, language, attitude, intelligence, character, and physical attributes.

Typical of the times was John Townsend Trowbridge's novel Cudjo's Cave (1864) which depicts African Americans as foolish and unintelligent:

Gold, sar! Gold, Miss Jinny! Needn't look 'spicious! I neber got 'em by no underground means! [He meant to say underhand.] ...Ye see, Massa Villars, eber sence ye gib me my freedom, ye been payin' meright smart wages,-- seben dollar a monf!...An' you rec'lec' you says to me, you says, "Hire it out to some honest man, Toby, and ye kin draw inference on it, " you says (p.21).

Many of the other vignettes are similarly frontal and inflammatory, directly aimed at fueling the flame of race prejudice. This example, coupled with MacCann's critique of each children's book, places one in the mind-set of the Antebellum times, to understand more clearly how race prejudice and slavery were held and transmitted: it began in the minds of unknowing adults who reached into the needing-to-know minds of children through the mainstream literature.

In part two, which focuses on the Postbellum years, MacCann concludes that children's literature still echoed race prejudice, bigotry, and ambivalence towards African Americans as described in part one of the book. The Civil War and Reconstruction changed little in published perceptions. This pattern held true whether the literature was published in the North or South. MacCann also pro-vides a sampling of explosive statements made by authors and political figures, as well as more disturbing character-izations of African Americans. For example, Joel Chandler Harris, a writer of children's literature at the time, penned these words about the character of African Americans:

The truth is, the responsibility of the negro was no more that of a little child who had wandered quite by accident, into the halls of legislation, and remained, pleased at the novelty of the situation, and yet wondering what it was all about. Like a novice learning to play chess, he moved whatever pieces he was told to move, and when no one was observing him closely he moved others for his own amusement (p.169).

MacCann never loses sight of her focus and does a good job of documenting the truth, as disconcerting as it may be. Clearly, MacCann's book is of importance. It is densely re-searched and filled with information. Readers of the book should be encouraged to think and or rethink back into the mainstream of children's literature discourse to broaden their knowledge spectrum. The searing focus of her book does, indeed, enlighten and extend existing knowledge on the his-tory of white supremacy in children's literature related to characterizations of African Americans. Readers should be left with more questions to consider. Perhaps this is the case when one reads research and is edified by its content.

Bena R. Hefflin is currently a Post-Doctorate Fellow in the
Department of Instruction and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests focus on the literacy practices of African American children and the uses of culturally specific African American children's literature in the classroom.