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Happy Monday!
The attacks on the 1619 Project are nothing new. And these moves are more political than anything, and ties back to the administration's broader goals to use race as a political tactic for the upcoming election. Nevertheless, it offers an opportunity to reflect on the history of how slavery has been taught in schools, and the impact of the 1619 Project on education today.
Supporting the 1619 Project means more than supporting its content (which is well-deserved in itself). By doing so, you'll be supporting the right for more truthful depictions of our nation's history to be taught in schools – regardless of how any political leaders feel.
I'd love to hear if you learned about slavery growing up in school – reply to this email with your experience.
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– Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Read and/or review the 1619 Project and discuss one of the articles with a friend or colleague this week.
2. Check to see what your local school's policies are on educating students about slavery.
3. Don't vote for Trump.
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
Since its publication in 2019, the 1619 Project published by the NYTimes has been hotly contested by conservative leaders, particularly in our government. But as its popularity has grown against our country’s racial reckoning, it has come under particular fire. In July, Sen. Tom Cotton proposed a bill seeking to ban schools from adopting the project as a part of their curriculum, calling slavery a “necessary evil” and that the notion that America is a “systemically racist country” is false (Washington Post).
These attacks came to a head this month when President Trump threatened to investigate and pull federal funding from schools that teach the curriculum. On Thursday, he said he’d sign an executive order "establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education," called the "1776 Commission" (NPR). According to Trump, the 1619 Project “rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom" (CBS News). Technically, this is true. And it’s necessary. Because the U.S. history perpetuated by society discredits the horror of slavery and its impact to modern-day.
The 1619 Project, spearheaded by Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative journalist and staff writer at the NYTimes, aims to change that. Instead of looking at America based on its founding in 1776, it analyzes its history based on a historic date in 1619. This was the year that the first group of enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia. It marks the beginning of slavery in U.S. and the start of African-American history. The 1619 Project, published on the 400th anniversary of this event, reframes the nation’s history around this historic date. Instead of traditional education that starts U.S. history on its founding, it centers the impact of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans in its narrative (New York Times Magazine).
Since its publication last year, the 1619 Project has become a vital part of education. According to an interview with Hannah-Jones, the project is being taught in at least one school in every state in the country and deemed mandatory in several, including Chicago Public Schools (74 Million). The curriculum is free and supported by the Pulitzer Center; you can explore it here.
This is historic because, for most of our nation’s founding, the education system has inadequately taught about slavery in America – and its lasting implications. Part of this is because of focus: unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet any academic standards for teaching U.S. history (NYTimes). Some states explicitly call for lessons on slavery, while others don't even mention it (Washington Post).
But it's also because of how our education is designed to teach us how we should think, not to think critically. Much of our perspective on U.S. history is influenced by the “Lost Cause” ideology, a form of revisionist history that gained popularity in the 1890s. This aimed to reframe the goals of the Confederacy after their defeat in the Civil War, rebranding their “campaign” as an “embodiment of the Framers’ true vision for America,” not the right to maintain slavery, and a means to protect “the southern way of life” (The Atlantic). Under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the first American president to hail from the South since the Civil War, this idea gained popularity.
This kind of thinking informed the textbooks created to educate our country on its history. The American Pageant, an AP high school textbook used by at least 5 million students annually (CBS News), shows evidence of this to this day. In the text of its 15th edition, Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, who was enslaved by him, is described as “intimacy” and an “affair” (NYTimes). The 17th (current) edition includes a map of “immigrants” to America in 1775. It includes Africans at the top of the list alongside Dutch, German, and Scottish people, insinuating that African people came to the U.S. willingly, not in chains. The book also has no mention of the N-word and its history of derogatory use against African Americans throughout history. But, it does include a thorough list of racial terms used against poor, non-land owning white people (CBS News).
This isn’t the only textbook with factual errors. The Southern Poverty Law Center reviewed dozens of history textbooks and graded them based on what they deemed a comprehensive education of slavery. The best textbook achieved a score of 70% against their rubric. The American Pageant received a 60% (Southern Poverty Law Center).
Unsurprisingly, The American Pageant does little to represent other communities of color. The book also says that disease was the cause for the genocide of Indigenous people and that "this depopulation was surely not intended by the Spanish” (Independent).
“I don’t remember ever going into any depth about slavery other than that there was slavery. The textbooks were pretty whitewashed. We never talked about the conditions of slavery or why it persisted.”
Philip Jackson, an American history teacher in Montgomery County, Md., for the Washington Post
And how history is shaped in textbooks can also depend on where the reader lives. The New York Times analyzed eight commonly used American history textbooks in California and Texas, two of the nation’s largest markets, and found striking differences. For example, on a page of the annotated Bill of Rights, a California textbook explains that the Second Amendment’s rulings have allowed for some gun regulations. But this note isn’t included in the textbooks for Texas. Both books include information on the Harlem Renaissance, but the one for Texas says that some critics “dismissed the quality of literature produced” during this period. Read more on the NYTimes, and the responses from readers.
As a result, many teachers feel unprepared to teach this in their classrooms. Because the vast majority (84% in 2016) of educators are white, many also feel uncomfortable directly addressing slavery and its impact (Southern Poverty Law Center). And, without a comprehensive curriculum or guidance, some teachers will take efforts into their own hands – for better or worse. A substitute teacher in New Jersey let the white students sell the Black students as a mock slave auction (Washington Post). On a worksheet entitled “The Life of Slaves: A Balanced View,” a teacher in Texas asked her eighth-grade students in American history class to list some of the positive and negative of slavery (AP News). And middle-schoolers in North Carolina were prompted to write down “four reasons why Africans made good slaves” (WBTV).
Further research indicates how this lack of education has impacted our perception of the country’s founding. Just under half of Americans know that slavery existed in all 13 colonies. 52% of Americans know slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War, as opposed to 41 percent who blame “another reason.” And more Americans (46% of respondents) believe that the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery. In reality, that was the 13th Amendment, which only 36% of respondents chose accurately (Washington Post).
Politicizing the textbooks that shape our nation isn’t new – in fact, using education to promote political ideals is a part of American history. Specific examples via Time. But as our country faces unprecedented challenges, it’s clear that many of its inhabitants are ill-equipped to fully understand the historical influences that got us here. We need to protect comprehensive curriculum that educators can implement in their classrooms. But it has to be willing to tell the truth. Because if we do, we all be more inspired to create the future that we deserve and collectively ensure that these injustices will never happen again. By protecting a whitewashed history, the current administration protects white supremacy and moves us further away from the country that truly supports us all.
Key Takeaways
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has made the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice a critical component of the upcoming election
Efforts to increase representation in the federal judiciary have been dismantled by the Trump administration
Diversity of the federal judiciary influences public perception of the political system
Increasing the diversity pipeline can help ensure more diverse candidates are nominated and confirmed
We must vote for a president that will nominate a diverse Supreme Court justice candidate, and ensure a Senate that's more likely to confirm one
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