Southern schools' history textbooks: A long history of deception, and what the future holds

For much of the 20th century, Southern classrooms treated Black history — when they touched the subject at all — as a sideshow to a white-dominated narrative.

Teachers taught students to sing Dixie and memorize long lists of forgettable governors. Civil War battles got described in detail. Textbooks celebrated the violent overthrow of democratically-elected, multiracial governments. Lynching went unmentioned. The evils of slavery got cursory acknowledgments — and quick dismissals.

“It should be noted that slavery was the earliest form of social security in the United States,” a 1961 Alabama history textbook said, falsely.

• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/12/07/southern-history-textbooks-long-history-deception/3809954001/

Submitted December 08, 2020 at 05:39AM by zsreport https://ift.tt/3mRsrzr