Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side: By Eve L. Ewing—2019 O. L. Davis, Jr. Outstanding Book Award Winner

In Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, Ewing (2018) describes the challenges of addressing a racialized and discriminatory political entity, including the mayor’s office and administrators of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system. Ewing, a sociologist and former CPS middle school English teacher, highlights how CPS administrators were bent on destroying the community schools that connect the intergenerational identities of African Americans on Chicago’s south side. Through critical discourse analysis, Ewing is careful not to make assumptions about what people mean when they talk. Instead, Ewing investigates “speech as a form of action” (p. 180), what people do with their words. This heart-rending analysis demonstrates the intersection of racism, politics, and power and its effects on schools, parents, children, and the community in which they exist.