And the legacies of slavery — lynchings, Jim Crow, disenfranchisement — were woven tightly into the American tapestry of my youth. They still echo with us. Loudly and persistently. No matter how much some would want us to ignore the clamor of justice.

As much as we wish American history were different, tragedy is part of our reality. We do a grave disservice to future generations if we sanitize the truth. People can behave horribly. Societies that profess noble values can countenance violent bigotry. We can either look back from whence we have come with clarity, or we can try to muddy the roots of the present and weaken ourselves in the process.

As much as we wish American history were different, tragedy is part of our reality. We do a grave disservice to future generations if we sanitize the truth. People can behave horribly. Societies that profess noble values can countenance violent bigotry. We can either look back from whence we have come with clarity, or we can try to muddy the roots of the present and weaken ourselves in the process.

snip


One passage that has gotten a lot of attention is for middle schoolers. It states they should learn that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The danger of this narrative is striking. A system that brutalized, raped, and killed human beings while stealing their freedom and denying their humanity is rotten to its core. That enslaved people were able to find resilience and build lives in some form is a testament to their courage and spirit. There is no “other side” to the story of slavery.

It is true that these new standards, as horrific as they are, would have been a great improvement over what I learned in my segregated middle school. We have come a long way. But that was because of the bravery of civil rights leaders and activists who fought, sometimes with their lives, for a full realization of American values.Any receding from progress — as this surely is — represents a threat to our democracy. We have been strengthened as a nation, all of us, by a national movement to right the wrongs of our past.