Richard henry pratt racism articles

The first cited use of "racism" as a concept came from an unlikely but not surprising source.

Pratt, Richard Henry (1840–1924) - TSHA

According to writer Greg Howard, Army general Richard Henry Prattwas the first person to use "racism" back in 1902. Pratt used the term to criticize how the federal government treated Indian nations and Indian people in the late 1800s. “Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow,” Pratt said at the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, Howard writes in The New York Times Magazine.

“Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism.” So instead of "segregating" Indian nations and their citizens, Pratt's solution was to assimilate them.

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By 1902, he was already doing that as the founder and superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Schoolin Pennsylvania. "A great general has Reconsidering Richard Henry Pratt: Cultural Genocide and ... SYRUW