1619 Project
The 1619 Project reminds us why American still needs the Southern Poverty Law Center. Since 1971, the SPLC has been fighting hate, teaching tolerance, seeking justice and exposing extremists across the United States.
The Underground Railroad, mural by Hale Aspacio Woodruff (1942)
246 Years of Slavery in America
Did you see it? The 1619 Project? If not, stop what you are doing and click here. It’s worth it, I’ll wait.
“Four-hundred years after enslaved Africans were first brought to Virginia, most Americans still don’t know the full story of slavery,” is how it begins. Now, I never claimed to know the “full story” of slavery but I know American History and I was always pretty confident that I could ace a Jeopardy category about the topic. How wrong I was.
Thanks to Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 Project co-authors, I now see that what I know is what I was taught in school -- and that’s definitely not the “full story.”
Yup, we did that play in fourth grade about Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, and the Underground Railroad. I remember that. And in seventh grade, we read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and visited Plymouth Church in Brooklyn where we got to sit in the pew where “Abraham Lincoln prayed” and heard stories about the people who hid in the basement on their escape from enslavement en route to Canada and freedom.
From the 1619 Project.
We Are Committing Educational Malpractice
Eleventh grade is when we did that “deep dive;” it’s the year New York State students devote to American History. All two hundred and some-odd years of it… And that’s the rub. The social studies textbook I used in eleventh grade devoted one chapter (18 pages) to all of American history before 1750. The origins of slavery in American, its beginnings in Virginia 400 years ago were definitely not included.
“We are committing educational malpractice,” begins page two of the New York Times supplement. Written by Hasan Kwame Jeffries, these words have come to haunt me. They are true. I know because I am proof of it.
Dr. Jeffries is an associate professor of history at Oho State University and also chair of the Teaching Hard History advisory board at the Southern Poverty Law Center -- the Coolest Charity In The World This Week.
Since 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been fighting hate, teaching tolerance, seeking justice and exposing extremists across the United States. They are dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. The SPLC’s mission will be complete when equal justice and equal opportunity finally become a reality. Let’s hope that day will come.
In 2017, the SPLC published the findings of an in-depth survey led by Dr. Jefferies and Maureen Costello, director of Teaching Tolerance at SPLC. It was an evaluation of more than 1,700 social-studies teachers; 1,000 high-school seniors; and the textbooks they use to understand how American slavery is taught, and what is learned.
“The findings were disturbing: There was widespread slavery illiteracy among students. Nearly 60 percent of teachers did not believe their textbook’s coverage of slavery was adequate” reports the New York Times. Evaluating textbooks, on average they scored a failing grade of 46 (out of 100) for the way they teach the history of enslavement in America.
“At its best, slavery is taught because we have to explain the Civil War. We tend to teach it like a Southern problem and a backward economic institution. The North is industrialized; the South was locked in a backward agricultural system” Ms. Costello told the New York Times.
From the 1619 Project
Sound familiar? It does to me. That’s exactly how I learned it and exactly what I’ve been walking around thinking my entire life. I had absolutely no idea that the origin of slavery in American began 241 years before the Southern States seceded from the Union. That’s 8 generations of enslaved Africans living in America before the Civil War even began!
Why don’t we teach that?
It is never too late to begin learning about where you came from. Because as Americans, every one of us has some connection to slavery. Enslaved Africans are a part of our history. That’s what the 1619 Project is here to address. So if you haven’t seen it yet, read it now. And share it with a child.
That’s why Southern Poverty Law Center is the Coolest Charity In The World This Week. Because our responsibility right now is not just to learn this history, it is also to teach it.
America wins when we are better educated, especially when we are all more honest and informed about our own history. Historic crises of hate and bigotry are not just issues for other countries and they were not all resolved when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. By sharing the 1619 Project with just one child you can influence the future of our country.
And then, go visit the Southern Poverty Law Center website. It will open your eyes to hate and injustice within our own democracy. And be prepared to be inspired. Because for every crisis of hate and injustice, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a strategy and team of people who want to help.
Donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center are tax-deductible and can be made at https://www.splcenter.org/. For more information please visit their website or contact the author at CoolestCharity.org
