Petition to School Boards to Teach Reconstruction

In my 40 years of teaching US history at community colleges I have always found that the majority of my students did not have a basic idea of the complexity of the Reconstruction Era. They tended to think only of the investments that helped to rebuild the South and modernize industry in the region. Understanding the "black codes," Congressional Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK, the effects of white terrorism on politics and economics, the role of freedmen and women in building black owned and controlled businesses and institutions, the election of 1876, the emergence of Jim Crow segregation, the rise of lynching, and the enshrinement of Jim Crow in the Plessey v Ferguson decision. They also generally had no idea about how sharecropping worked or that tens of thousands of black men, women, and children were arrested and forced to provide free labor in major industries in the South. Some of the major industries in the New South were able to make huge profits using the convict lease system of forced labor. Without a thorough knowledge of these systems of control and exploitation students do not have a good picture of the Reconstruction Era of US history or the situation that Black Americans found themselves enduring during that period. I must mention that some students do arrive in my classes with a good background in this material so I know that someone or two teachers or schools do a good job on this difficult material. It is essential that all students have a good background in this era of US history to understand the US today.

The link between the past and the present.

It reveals to us how we got here!

It's time children and many adults learn the true history of the United States....

It is important because most Americans do not understand the details of our history which allows them to create myths.

This period of time marks significant movement toward a more perfect democracy - one in which all men (if not all people) were accorded the rights and respect they were due. To not teach the contributions of this era is to perpetuate myths that are tearing the US apart and denying a critical period of history.

We need to avoid the same mistakes made regarding race relations. If people are going to support Black Lives Matter they need to understand why.

"Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another." - Winston Churchill, The Supreme Imperialist

Students deserve to understand the history of racial oppression in the United States to understand its implications today.

It isn't finished!!