Black Indigenous Children were forced to integrate in boarding schools and media brainwashing
- Ishmael Bey
- 23 hours ago
- 9 min read
When we talk about Black and Indigenous peoples being sent to boarding schools for "forced integration" or "assimilation," it’s important to separate a little:
Indigenous ( American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian) children were primarily targeted for the boarding school system in the U.S. and Canada.
Black children faced segregated schools (under Jim Crow) and then forced integration after 1954's Brown v. Board of Education — but not through boarding schools in the same way as Indigenous children. Instead, Black students were often bussed to white schools under court-ordered desegregation.
For Indigenous children:
Between the late 1800s and 1970s, thousands of American Indian children were forcibly taken from their families and sent to off-reservation boarding schools designed to "kill the Indian, save the man" — meaning destroy their culture and replace it with Euro-American ways. Some of the most infamous ones were:
Carlisle Indian Industrial School (Pennsylvania) — the model for all others, founded in 1879.
Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (Oklahoma)
Haskell Indian Nations University (originally a boarding school) (Kansas)
Sherman Institute (now Sherman Indian High School) (California)
Phoenix Indian School (Arizona)
Chemawa Indian School (Oregon)
Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School (Michigan)
There were over 400 such schools across the U.S.
In Canada, you might hear about Residential Schools, which had a similar purpose — and those were largely run by churches and government.
For Black children:
Instead of boarding schools, Black children were:
Forced into segregated schools under "separate but equal" policies before the 1950s.
Bussed to white schools after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) — to enforce desegregation, often facing horrible violence and racism.
There were Historically Black Boarding Schools, like:
Piney Woods Country Life School (Mississippi)
Laurinburg Institute (North Carolina)
Palmer Memorial Institute (North Carolina)
Calhoun Colored School (Alabama, early 1900s)
Incredible Footage of Black children in a 1968 classroom (Produced by Bill Cosby)
Children were forced into false nationalities and identities with brainwashing methods , intimidation and government sanctioned systems
Roots functioned as a weaponized myth
Roots Was a Cultural Weapon: How Plagiarism, Media Propaganda, and Educational Indoctrination Stole Black Indigenous Identity
When Alex Haley’s Roots premiered in 1976, it was not just a book — it was a full-scale psychological operation. Sold to the American public as a true ancestral epic, Roots used the emotional weight of history to hammer into Black Indigenous minds a single, state-approved narrative: You are from Africa — and only Africa.
But peel back the surface and you find a truth that has been deliberately buried:
Roots was a plagiarized, fictionalized product, weaponized by media corporations, educational institutions, and government interests to erase Black Indigenous identities from the American consciousness
Plagiarism at the Core
Alex Haley did not invent the story he sold to the world. In 1978, writer Harold Courlander sued Haley for blatant plagiarism of his 1967 novel, The African. Expert witnesses at the trial testified that whole scenes, characterizations, and narrative structures were lifted directly from Courlander’s work.1
Haley’s team eventually settled the lawsuit for $650,000, a tacit admission of guilt. Under oath, Haley himself conceded that portions of Roots were copied.2
Despite this, the Pulitzer Prize committee did not revoke his 1977 Special Award for Literature. Why? Because Roots had already served its purpose: delivering a simplified, digestible origin story to millions of Black Americans — an origin story the system could control.
Historical Fabrications and Myth-Making
Alex Haley promoted Roots as a nonfictional genealogy tracing his ancestry back to a Gambian man named Kunta Kinte. But actual historians and genealogists could find no concrete evidence for Haley’s claims.3 His African link was, at best, anecdotal and unverified.
In later interviews, Haley quietly admitted that Roots was a "faction" — a blend of fact and fiction. Yet public schools and mass media continued to treat it as a historical document.
Why? Because myth-making, when properly packaged, is a far more effective tool of control than truth.
Media as a Weapon
The 1977 Roots TV miniseries reached over 130 million viewers, becoming one of the most-watched programs in American history.4 This wasn't just entertainment; it was mass indoctrination.
Schools made Roots mandatory viewing. Textbooks and curricula incorporated its narrative wholesale. Black Indigenous children — many of whom had lineages tying them to Native American nations — were force-fed a vision of themselves as exclusively African imports.
The television screen became a modern boarding school:
Not teaching children who they were — but teaching them what the system needed them to believe.
The Erasure of Black Indigenous Identity
The real crime of Roots wasn’t just plagiarism. It was ethnic erasure.
Throughout history, vast numbers of Black Indigenous peoples existed across the Americas — from the "Black Indians" of the Southeast to the Afro-Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and the Southwest. Many were reclassified as "colored" or "Negro" under U.S. racial laws, effectively
erasing their Indigenous legal status and severing their ties to ancestral lands.
By pushing the narrative that all Black Americans were "African slaves" — and only that — Roots helped:
Sever Black Indigenous peoples from their Native nations.
Undermine land claims and treaty rights.
Simplify the history of colonial violence for easier public digestion.
It created a false origin story perfectly aligned with the interests of a settler colonial state.
Cui Bono? Who Benefits?
By mass-producing a singular African identity for all Black people in America, the state and its corporate partners erased inconvenient truths:
The fact that many so-called "Negroes" were already here before Columbus.
The fact that Black Indigenous peoples had sovereign claims to the land.
The fact that American history was not just one of African captivity — but of Indigenous genocide, of which Black peoples were also victims and survivors.
Control the origin story, and you control the future.
Reclaiming the Stolen Self
Alex Haley’s Roots was not a gift to Black America. It was a weapon — crafted by plagiarism, sharpened by media, and deployed through education.
Today, the descendants of Black Indigenous peoples are awakening. They are reclaiming the buried truths of their ancestry — truths deeper, older, and more powerful than the slave ship narrative.
Identity is not something to be given. It is something to be remembered.
The soil knows. The blood knows. And no amount of television propaganda can erase that forever.
Footnotes
"Roots Plagiarism Trial: 'Roots' Plagiarism Suit Settled," The New York Times, Dec 15, 1978. ↩
Bruce Jackson, The Story Behind Roots, New Republic, 1977. ↩
Mark Ottaway, The Sunday Times (London), “Haley Admits 'Roots' Is Partly Fictional,” 1977. ↩
"Roots: The Saga of an American Family — Television Viewership," Nielsen Media Research, 1977. ↩
The Neuroscience of Race: How the Brain Processes Identity, Difference, and Belonging
Race is a social construct — not a biological fact. Genetically, human beings are more alike than different (around 99.9% alike across the entire species). Yet, despite this, humans experience race as very real — and neuroscience helps explain how and why.
Our brains evolved to notice patterns, categorize, and create "in-groups" vs "out-groups" — and this has massive implications for how race is perceived, enforced, and even internalized.
Here’s what modern neuroscience shows:
The Brain’s Default: Categorization and Pattern Recognition
The brain is wired to sort information quickly, often subconsciously:
Faces are processed in the fusiform face area of the brain.
The brain immediately tries to categorize people into groups based on visual cues — like skin tone, facial features, clothing.
This process is so fast that it happens before conscious thought.
Study example: Researchers have found that people can unconsciously categorize race within 100 milliseconds of seeing a face. That’s faster than it takes to blink.
In-group vs Out-group Biases Are Natural — But They Can Be Programmed
The brain shows different activation patterns when interacting with "in-group" vs "out-group" members:
Amygdala activation: When seeing faces of "out-group" members, the amygdala (which processes fear and threat) can light up, even if the viewer is not overtly racist.
Medial prefrontal cortex activation: Thinking about someone as a person, not a "thing," activates this region. Dehumanization suppresses this.
👉 Key point: The categories the brain uses for "in" vs "out" are not fixed — they are learned. If society teaches that certain races are "other," "threatening," or "inferior," the brain wires itself to believe it. This wiring can happen even to the group being oppressed themselves.
Neuroscience and Internalized Racism
Because of the brain’s plasticity (its ability to rewire itself), if a person is raised in an environment saturated with:
negative stereotypes
history erasure
enforced narratives (like "you are only X" and nothing else)
then they may unconsciously internalize those ideas about themselves and others.
For Black Indigenous peoples, growing up surrounded by narratives that:
deny Indigenous roots
claim sole African "slave" ancestry
ignore complex histories of sovereignty and belonging could literally reshape neural pathways, making it harder to access, believe in, or even imagine alternative ancestral truths.
This is how identity warfare happens at a biological level.
Media, Education, and Memory Formation
Repeated exposure to messages — through television, schooling, textbooks, movies — lays down memory traces in the brain:
The hippocampus helps store these memories.
Over time, false narratives can feel as "true" and "natural" as real ones.
This is why propaganda works so effectively: It exploits the brain’s normal learning mechanisms.
If you see yourself portrayed only as a "slave" for decades, your brain might literally prune away alternative histories, making them feel alien, wrong, or impossible — even if they are true.
Breaking the Neural Chains: Neuroplasticity and Healing
The good news: The brain can change.
Through critical education, ancestral reconnection, community healing, and exposure to suppressed histories, it’s possible to:
Unlearn racialized programming.
Rebuild a deeper, more authentic sense of identity.
Reclaim ancestral memories buried under colonial storytelling.
This is neuroplasticity in action: your brain can be rewired to recognize broader truths — and reject the artificial cages built around race.
Race is not real biologically, but it is real neurologically.
The narratives we accept shape the way our brains see the world, others, and ourselves.
For Black Indigenous peoples — and for all peoples — the journey of decolonization is not just historical or political. It’s neurological.
It’s a literal act of rewiring the mind back toward wholeness.
BONUS ARTICLE
Would you like me to go even deeper and explain the neurobiology of trauma and epigenetics (how the experiences of slavery, boarding schools, and land dispossession can actually be passed down biologically)? It connects very powerfully to this! 🔥🧠
The Neurobiology of Trauma and the Epigenetics of Historical Oppression
When people talk about trauma, they often imagine emotional wounds.
But trauma — especially historical trauma — doesn’t just affect feelings.
It rewires the brain and changes the body at the genetic level, sometimes passing these changes to the next generations.
For Black Indigenous peoples, this scientific reality helps explain why ancestral experiences like slavery, boarding schools, family separations, and identity erasure continue to have real effects today — even if those events happened centuries ago.
How Trauma Affects the Brain
When a person undergoes trauma — physical, emotional, cultural — the brain adapts for survival:
Amygdala (fear center) becomes hyperactive.
Prefrontal cortex (reasoning, judgment) shrinks in function.
Hippocampus (memory and learning) can shrink or become damaged.
Traumatized brains become wired for threat detection:
Hypervigilance
Anxiety
Difficulty trusting
Memory fragmentation
This was essential for survival during slavery, genocide, and colonization — but harmful over generations if healing does not occur.
The Biology of Intergenerational Trauma
Scientists now know trauma can cause changes not only in the individual brain, but also in the way genes are expressed.
Epigenetics is the study of how experiences can "switch on" or "switch off" certain genes without changing the DNA code itself.
Example:
Severe trauma in one generation can cause the next generation to inherit altered stress responses.
The body’s stress hormone systems (like cortisol production) can be permanently altered.
Key Studies:
Descendants of Holocaust survivors show higher rates of anxiety and PTSD — even if they never experienced the Holocaust directly.1
Studies on descendants of enslaved Africans and Native boarding school survivors show similar patterns: higher baseline stress, depression rates, and inflammatory diseases.2
Bottom line: Trauma leaves biological fingerprints that cross time.
The Epigenetics of Identity Erasure
Now think about forced reprogramming:
Children removed from their families.
Taught to hate their language, culture, and bodies.
Told they were "only" slaves or "inferior" beings.
These experiences weren't just emotionally damaging. They literally changed brain structures and left chemical marks on genes that regulate emotions, memory, and resilience.
When Black Indigenous children were told they were only Africans ripped from elsewhere — instead of belonging to Turtle Island or mixed Indigenous nations — it created a deep identity fracture that likely carried forward epigenetically.
What Happens to a People Under Constant Identity Attack?
Under relentless assault:
Neural networks weaken around authentic memory, cultural pride, self-worth.
Stress systems stay permanently activated (higher risks of diabetes, heart disease, mental health disorders).
Epigenetic markers can make future generations more sensitive to stress, distrustful, or dissociated from their own ancestral knowledge.
This is not a weakness. It’s the body's attempt to survive extreme historical violence.
The Healing Path: Neuroplasticity and Epigenetic Reversal
Here’s the revolutionary truth:
Healing is possible — at the brain and genetic levels.
New research shows:
Neuroplasticity allows traumatized brains to rebuild healthier pathways through practices like mindfulness, traditional ceremonies, reconnecting with suppressed cultural roots, and community healing.
Epigenetic markers can change again over time when people experience safety, love, cultural restoration, and healing environments.3
In other words:
Reconnecting to land, language, ancestry, and true history is medicine — not just spiritually, but biologically.
Acts of remembering and resisting colonial narratives are acts of biological liberation.
Final Thought
Colonizers understood something critical: Control the identity, and you control the body, the mind, and the future generations.
But now we understand something even more powerful: Reclaim the memory, and you reclaim the biology — you reclaim the future.
The brain can heal.
The blood remembers.
Footnotes
Yehuda, R., et al. (2005). "Transgenerational Effects of Trauma: Epigenetic Mechanisms." Biological Psychiatry. ↩
Walters, Karina L., et al. (2011). "Bodies Don’t Just Tell Stories, They Tell Histories: Embodiment of Historical Trauma Among American Indians and Alaska Natives." Du Bois Review. ↩
Nestler, Eric J., (2016). "Epigenetic Mechanisms of Depression." JAMA Psychiatry. ↩
