Many states have passed laws that ban the teaching of accurate history. Sometimes these laws ban “divisive concepts,” some ban anything that might cause students to feel uncomfortable, some find other language to warn teachers and textbook publishers to omit the shameful events of the past, especially the racist treatment of people of color.
In Florida, where the state went to great lengths to whitewash the teaching of Black history, one man has devoted himself to telling the truth. That man is Dr. Marvin Dunn. Dr. Dunn was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Network for Public Education. In the meanwhile, you can read his book A History of Florida Through Black Eyes.
In response to Dr. Dunn’s moving presentation, a friend of NPE sent me the following article about the Danville Massacre of 1883. We now know that Reconstruction was a period of impressive racial progress. Formerly enslaved people voted, opened small businesses, and asserted their newly won rights.
But the former Confederates found this rebalancing of racial relationships intolerable. The Danville Massacre put an end to a period of reconciliation and installed Jim Crow, cancelling out the gains of Reconstruction.
The author of the article could not remember learning about this important event in the state’s history.
Learning the truth about history doesn’t make children uncomfortable. It makes them informed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent point. I believe, however, that teaching history can very much make one uncomfortable, but that does not — and should not! — disqualify it from being part of a good education.
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The whole ‘discomfort’ assertion is a smokescreen for what the right wants. What the extremists on the right want is to erase Black history. We have to look for the motive behind the so-called culture wars. Right wing extremists create chaos to hide their motives. They really are not offended by library books in public schools. It never was an issue until now. They want to sow seeds of distrust in public schools to destroy and privatize them.
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They don’t even try to put forward rationales that are at all rational. Any excuse will do, even one as flimsy as this. Yup. They just don’t want little Karen and Chad coming home shocked at their parent’s blatant racism and ignorance of history.
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“The whole ‘discomfort’ assertion. . . .”
Can you say white xtian snowflake?
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