American Federation of Teachers Launches Campaign to “Stamp Out Racism”

Guest post written by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Imagine a world without racism. Now gather up some tools and put in the work to get us there.

That’s what the AFT is doing with its campaign,Stamping Out Racism and Hate. Launched with partners NAACP and First Book, the campaign aims to make sure every student has an actively anti-racist, safe, and welcoming learning environment, and it will give educators the resources they need to help create it.

While the campaign was announced just in time for Juneteenth—the day we celebrate emancipation from enslavement—it will officially launch in July with a special AFT edition of the bookStamped,by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. A relatable remix of Kendi’sStamped From the Beginning, this version unpacks Kendi’s treatise on how historic racism has shaped our lives with the trademark humor and familiar language that’s made Reynolds an award-winning author of young adult novels. The book is “not a history book,” Reynolds tells readers. It is “a book that contains history.”

For example, Reynolds calls Abraham Lincoln “complicated Abe,” for first refusing to challenge slavery, then eventually issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. He writes about James Brown lyrics and colorism (“I’m Black and I’m Proud”), and Richard Nixon’s coded words like “ghetto,” “urban” and “thugs,” that demean Black people “without ever actually saying “Black people,” as Reynolds writes. “My mother would call this ‘getting’ over.’”

“The authors lay out the pervasiveness and insidiousness of racism in our lives, even as the history and legacy of racism often are left out of what we are taught and told,” writes AFT President Randi Weingarten in a note included in the special edition. “Their words have the power to transform the way we look at the world—to deconstruct false narratives, appreciate diversity and differences, and, crucially, to recognize and confront our own racist ideas. I wish I had a book like this when I was a young student.”

The AFT will distribute hundreds of copies ofStampedto NAACP youth councils and advisors at their national convention in July. Giveaways will continue throughout the year. Free classroom collections will go out to AFT members, educators, and youth mentors during the AFT’s TEACH conference July 9-11.