Dr. Bettina Love for Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal (Macmillan, 2023)

 

The Stowe Center is pleased to celebrate Dr. Bettina Love as the 10th Stowe Prize for Literary Activism winner. Her nonfiction book Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal (Macmillan, 2023) exemplifies how research and writing can be activated to change hearts and minds, share a call to action, and help prompt a more equitable future.

Of winning the award, Dr. Love said “I am absolutely thrilled to be awarded the 10th Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. To be counted among the esteemed previous winners of this award is truly humbling, and I’m deeply honored to have my work recognized in this manner, especially within the context of an award that honors the enduring legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to the selection committee for this incredible honor. I also want to express my appreciation to all the educators, parents, activists, and students who are tirelessly advocating for a more just school system for all children. This award is a testament to our collective efforts and a true win for our community.” 

“The selection committee recognized both the power of Dr. Love’s lived experience and the weight of what she is exposing, clearly and compellingly, for our nation,” said Karen Fisk, Executive Director of the Stowe Center. “Together we must rethink our educational system so that it can be a healing, heart of democracy that helps all children reach their greatest potential. Educational transformation is not a suggestion, it is an imperative.”

Dr. Love’s book argues forcefully that Reagan’s presidency ushered in a War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing, closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior, egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration. Today, there is little national conversation about a structural overhaul of American schools; cosmetic changes, rooted in anti-Blackness, are now passed off as justice. “In honoring Dr. Love’s work, we celebrate a visionary whose words serve as a catalyst for positive change. Her book, a rallying cry for educational justice, inspires us to be architects of transformation, ensuring that every child’s dream is nurtured and honored” said Michael Mallery, Chair of the Selection Committee.

It is time to put a price tag on the miseducation of Black children. In this prequel to 2013 Stowe Prize winner Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Dr. Love serves up a blistering account of four decades of educational reform through the lens of the people who lived it. Punished for Dreaming lays bare the devastating effect on 25 Black Americans caught in the intersection of economic gain and racist ideology. Then, with input from leading U.S. economists, Dr. Love offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.

Stowe Prize for Literary Activism Short List (alpha by title)

  • Chain Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
  • Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward
  • Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride 
  • Punished For Dreaming, Bettina Love
  • The Ground Breaking, Scott Ellsworth

Stowe Prize for Literary Activism Selection Committee

Dr. Michael Mallery, Chair, Director of Social Emotional Learning, Windsor Schools

Stephen Bayer, Retired Senior VP, Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford

Antoinette Brim-Bell, Connecticut State Poet Laureate   

Dr. Diane B. Cloud, Retired School Administrator

Prof. Joan Hedrick, Charles A. Dana Professor of History, Emerita, Trinity College

Terry Schmitt, Executive Director, CT Council for Interreligious Understanding

Prof. Brian Waddell, Political Science, Urban and Community Studies, University of Connecticut

The Honorable Dawne G. Westbrook, Connecticut Superior Court