72 Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 35, No. 1 January/February/March 2000 ©2000 International Reading Association (pp. 72–88) P olitics and literacy, linked early in United States history, remain inseparable. One of the first ex- amples of the seemingly benign connections is found in the 1647 Massachusetts “Old Deluder Satan Act,” that held: It being one chief point of the old deluder, Satan, to keep men from knowledge of the Scriptures…it is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them to the number of fifty household- ers, shall then forthwith appoint one within this town to teach all such children as shall restore to him to read and write…. Forasmuch as it greatly concurs the welfare of this country, that youth thereof be educated, not only in good literature, but sound doctrine. (http://www.prestonspeed.com) The law required communities to provide schooling for children when the population reached a minimum of 50 households. A literate population was encouraged for several reasons, including the ability to read and interpret scripture without the need for clerical intervention and the development of an educated polity capable of with- standing political oppression and tyranny. Later historic periods offer examples of the ways in which literacy was put to more nefarious uses in order to accomplish specific political results. For example, the re- strictions on girls and women resulted in ladies’ curricula. Many women and girls were denied access to specific content knowledge, Greek and Latin languages, higher mathematics, and science. The gendered curricula for girls and women with an emphasis on the arts and humanities continue to influence the intellectual options of many females. Similarly, the creation of Slave Codes in the southern U.S. penalized those who taught slaves to read and write or punished slaves for becoming literate. Educational history contains many examples of the inextricable connections between politics and literacy. Terms such as politicized, politicization of literacy, and education is political evoke a range of responses, many negative. Not surprisingly, academics can revive or ele- vate their careers by creating organizations, writing books and articles, or appearing in various media outlets decry- ing the injection of politics or political correctness into ar- eas of intellectual inquiry. For instance, the National Association of Scholars emerged in opposition to the per- ceived radicalization of the Modern Language Association; a similar group formed among historians in response to the emphases placed on race, class, and gen- der in presentations at annual conferences and in various publications. A comparable movement is apparent among literacy researchers, for example, the recently formed Society for the Scientific Study of Reading and their jour- nal Scientific Studies of Reading. Nowadays, political stances expressed in phrases such as states’ rights, local control, empowering parents, and emancipatory or libera- tory education offer a shorthand method for ascertaining one’s politics and where they fit on the left to right con- tinuum. In some ways, the task of writing about literacy and politics in the millennium would be much easier if dis- tinct ideological stances existed that characterized labels such as conservative, liberal, centrist, or radical. Attaching Political acts: Literacy learning and teaching Arlette Ingram Willis Violet J. Harris University of Illinois at Urbana– Champaign, USA