Teen Vogue’s new article The Reconstruction Era Is Not Taught Well in US Schools — Here’s Why That Matters is out this week. Here is an excerpt from the start of the article:
The post-Civil War Reconstruction era marked a period of massive social, political, economic, and cultural advancements for Black Americans. Between 1865 and 1877, formerly enslaved people gained citizenship rights, fought for land ownership and economic independence, ran for elected office, and established many civic, religious, and educational institutions that are still with us today. With these gains, however, also came fierce backlash to racial progress. White supremacists used violence and intimidation to reverse many of these advancements and ushered in a new era of Jim Crow laws.
Despite the fact that Reconstruction is an important, influential chapter in American history — and that we are still dealing with the fallout of its end — many public and private school curricula do not give adequate attention to this era, spending more time on other periods in American history, such as the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. A report from the Zinn Education Project released early last year found that, nationwide, the Reconstruction era is seldom taught accurately in K-12 schools, and often not enough class time is spent discussing this period. As a result, the Reconstruction era is poorly understood.
According to the Zinn report, state standards and history curricula nationwide fail to “teach a sufficiently complex and comprehensive history of Reconstruction.” Instead, students are often taught an inaccurate and racist depiction of the time. Jesse Hagopian, an educator and organizer with the Zinn Education Project, tells Teen Vogue, “Our report on Reconstruction discovered that the vast majority of states established education standards that ignore the role of white supremacy in ending Reconstruction, and they reproduce racist and false framings of Reconstruction that obscure the contributions of Black people to Reconstruction’s achievements.”
Much of this is due to the fact that many history textbooks are either inadequate, outdated, or rely on misinformation and racist propaganda once peddled by the Dunning School, a group of Columbia University scholars led by historian William A. Dunning in the early 20th century. Most scholars and historians now recognize Reconstruction as a period of Black activism and prosperity, but the Dunning scholars created a school of thought that portrayed the Reconstruction era as a massive failure. According to this racist, revisionist history, Black Americans were “ignorant” and easily manipulated by northern Republicans, who took advantage of corrupt state governments to punish former Confederates and slave owners, who were predominately white southern Democrats.
“The Dunning School peddled in this ‘lost cause’ narrative that made the South seem like a noble cause, as if they were fighting for tradition rather than fighting to maintain human bondage,” Hagopian says. “And that, unfortunately, is a narrative that weaved itself into corporate textbooks all over the country throughout US history.” This false narrative was also upheld by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group focused on ensuring that history textbooks and other reading materials painted the Confederacy — and the forces of white supremacy during Reconstruction — in a respectable and positive light.
Here is an excerpt from the conclusion of this surprisingly in-depth article:
Experts agree that studying this history, however, can help students better understand America’s past and the structural racism that still plagues our nation today, which is especially important given the present political climate. “One of the reasons Reconstruction is so relevant to the current moment or the most recent past is the rise of a racist backlash against progress,” Foner points out. “Reconstruction tells us about the ideals that Americans claim to follow, the ideals of equality and democracy for all; but it also tells us about a tradition, unfortunately, of racism, of violence, and of many people feeling that too many people are voting, that the results of elections are not to be taken seriously.” From the January 6 insurrection to waves of voter suppression laws targeting people of color, these themes are still very much with us.
According to Bouie, the “core ideological struggle” of the Reconstruction era raised many important questions about who America is for and who should be considered an American. For the first time, Americans were asking themselves what kind of government they wanted: a multiracial democracy or a white man’s democracy? “Part of what you see during Reconstruction is Americans grappling with questions about the legacies of slavery, about the role of the state, about the nature of citizenship itself, who it includes and who it excludes, if anyone,” he says. The circumstances have certainly changed, but, Bouie asserts, these are arguments we’re still having.
The Zinn Education Project wants state standards to be updated and teachers to be given the proper tools and resources to teach students a more honest, accurate depiction of the Reconstruction era. In many states, though, lawmakers are forcing schools to take the opposite tack, restricting classroom discussion of race and other aspects of US history. But Hagopian hopes that resources like the Zinn project can help answer some of the era’s most central questions.
If there’s one lesson to be learned from Reconstruction, it’s that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” Foner says. “Rights can be gained and rights can be lost. Many people didn’t quite realize that until we are now seeing it. We are seeing principles that seem to have been achieved forever turned back, wiped away — and that happened during and after Reconstruction.” He continues, “So, studying Reconstruction is very important, both in terms of what was attempted and the bitter resistance that the policies of Reconstruction generated.”
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