Goodreads asked Susan DuFresne:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Susan DuFresne The most powerful graphic image I have seen in recent years was when many Veterans apologized to the 13 Tribes at Standing Rock [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoUKC...]. I realized that white educators were complicit in ethnic cleansing of our Indigenous peoples through our participation as educators in U.S. Boarding Schools, and that we too owe an apology to our Indigenous peoples.

Earlier, I had participated in the Backbone Campaign's LocalizeThis Action Camp with Bill Moyer and activists from across the country on Vashon Island. Jimmy Betts, Seth Tobocman, and Kim Fraczek of Beyond Extreme Engergy had created an amazing Fracking banner in graphic novel style. I immediately realized this could be an art medium that could tell the story of institutional racism in U.S. public schools.

Becca Ritchie, friend, unionist, and NEA BAT Caucus Chair along with the Executive Directors of the Badass Teachers Association supported my banner making efforts and my banner became the backdrop of a Restorative Justice Circle in Seattle on July 23, 2017. Viewers of the banner at the event suggested that it should be transformed into a book in order to share this important history across the country.

Author and educator, Anthony Cody helped connect me to the folks at Garn Press and we published The History of Institutional Racism in U.S. Public Schools in May 2018. The children I teach in my classroom - the children across the country - and the impacts of institutional racism on our schools and our society, along with these three events became my inspiration.

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