Reckoning

“Kalamazoo College has been a center of social justice teaching and leadership training for decades. Anne Dueweke’s excellent new book reminds us of that practice, but she also reveals that few long-standing institutions, including K College, are untouched by the legacies of racism and colonialism. An important case study of the political and ethical issues facing college campuses in the 21st century.”

Barbara Ransby, John D. MacArthur Chair and Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of the award-winning biography, "Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement"

“Reckoning is the fascinating story of the nearly two centuries history of Kalamazoo College, viewed through the powerful lens of White privilege. It is the story of trying to reconcile lofty ideals with the stark realities of racism. And it is an unfinished story because we don’t know whether Kalamazoo College will ultimately succeed in achieving its social justice goals. Reckoning shows us the importance of taking time to reflect on what has gone before so that we can contemplate what is yet to come. It should be required reading for all who profess a renewed commitment to dismantling structural racism.”

David J. Asai, Senior Director, Science Education, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

“Dueweke traces the history of Kalamazoo College’s origins in settler colonialism and its evolution to the cusp of America’s current racial reckoning. Without fanfare or oversentimentality, this historical case study uncovers contradictions between progress and backlash, between courageous institutional leadership and resistance to change, between grassroots activism and institutional repression. Recounting Indigenous, Black, Asian students’ experiences brings era-specific socio-political contexts to life as national politics played out within Kalamazoo. Revealing this troubled past—restores and clarifies what higher education, and particularly, the liberal arts has been—leading us to wonder what it might still become...”

Toni King, Associate Professor of Black Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies, Charles and Nancy Brickman Distinguished Leadership Chair, Denison University

“Carefully researched and passionately written, Dueweke’s history illuminates both the longstanding progressive commitments of Kalamazoo College and its enduring entanglements with colonialism, enslavement, and institutional racism. This book is a model for the kind of reckoning required of all American educational institutions if we are to truly live up to our social justice commitments.”

Laura Barraclough, Professor of American Studies, Yale University

“Anne Dueweke reminds us that the time for reckoning is always at hand. As she traces the history of one liberal arts college, she outlines the limits of American humility and the power of visionary leadership. From the shadow of the Indian Removal Act, cast to clear the physical and social landscape, to recent efforts to listen attentively to diverse students and respond to their needs, this is a re-counting of facts that tells the full story. It does not romanticize racism, nor does it make excuses for ethnic exclusion. Reckoning: Kalamazoo College Uncovers Its Racial and Colonial Past is an act of reconciliation and redirection. By moving beyond theory to assess practices, this is a book centered on the education and evolution of humanity. It is the record of one institution finding its soul.”

Margaret Ann Noodin, Professor of English and American Indian Studies and Associate Dean of Humanities, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Acknowledgements

Notes on Language 

Introduction 

One: Ascendancy

• “Hardly Enough Left to Cover the Bones”
• “To Take Ascendancy by Right of Priority”
• “Not Counting Indians”
• “Swap and Dicker”
• “For the Instruction of Young Ladies and Gentlemen”
• “We Have Not a Mind to Remove to a Distant Land”
• “An Academic Grove Worthy of Plato and His Pupils” 

Two: Dissenters and Heretics

• From Slavery to a Black Mecca
• Of Segregationists, Assimilationists, and Anti-Racists
• “I Want to Be Off for Africa”
• “The Narrow Spirit of Sectarianism and Bigotry”
• Heretics
• “A Live Man, in Every Sense of the Term” 

Three: The Shape of Things

• The New White City
• The Ivory Tower
• “The Negro Problem”
• “America for Americans”
• Missionary Mindset
• “A Sprinkling of Units from Other Ethnic Cultures”
• Unbidden 

Four: Behind the Mask

• An Indian Prince
• Happy Days
• “Flagrant Examples of Discrimination Are Everywhere Present”
• The Civil Rights Movement as Seen from the Kalamazoo College Campus
• “A Great Deal of Patience and Tact” 

Five: “There Is No Innocence”

• “Our Uneasy Silence”
• “Boiling Water” College
• “You Have to Be ‘Somebody’”
• “Black Is Beautiful”
• “Our Time Is Extremely Valuable and Can Be Wasted No Longer”
• “You Must Attempt to Stand Where We Are Standing”
• “The Most Volatile Act That Can Be Taken”

Six: The Brick Wall

• Backsliding
• “Where Are Your Cultural Differences?”
• The Quest for Multiculturalism
• “The Sun Setting in the West”
• Bad Apples 

Conclusion: Bending the Arc

About the Author 

Anne Dueweke

Anne Dueweke worked at Kalamazoo College, her alma mater, for over twenty years. During most of that time, she served as director of faculty grants and institutional research. Other roles included director of the Academic Resource Center and director of student fellowships. Throughout her time at Kalamazoo, she served as an academic advisor to many students and was very involved in outcomes assessment and reaccreditation work. Dueweke led a number of equity and inclusion initiatives, including student focus groups on race, campus climate studies, and the committee that drafted Kalamazoo College’s first land acknowledgement statement. In 2016, she received the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award, and from 2015-2021 she held a fellowship from Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Dueweke currently works as a resource developer for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.