Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Russell Randall | Flagstaff, AZ
It is of paramount importance that American children learn a true and honest history of our nation. If our children do not learn what has happened in America's past, our country is doomed to repeat the same mistakes that have occurred in our past. I have been a teacher at public high schools in Arizona for over 40 years and I have never observed a teacher teach a lesson that made children feel guilty about their race. It saddens me a great deal that if our political leaders choose to deny teachers the right to teach a true and honest history of our country, over time, our democracy will fail.
Coleen Martínez | Claremont, CA
I want children to know history and how to do and be better.
Kimberly Nurse | Virginia Beach, VA
Just as the great Shirley Chisholm, I will be a catalyst for change.
Nancy Kuse | Saint Louis, MO
Democracy is eroding due to lawmakers imposing restrictions on what can be taught and how to vote. This is unconstitutional and I refuse to be complicit in this attack on critical thinking and access to knowledge.
Kyley Pulphus | New Orleans, LA
it's outrageous that real history is NOT being taught.
Minnie Cross | Milwaukee, WI
ALL STUDENTS NOT JUST OUR BLACK STUDENTS NEEDS TO KNOW THE TURTH, ALL EDUCATOR SHOULD WANT TO TEACHER THE TURTH WHATEVER YOU DO LET IT BE DONE OUT OF LOVE AND NOT FALSE WORDS
Mariah Doll | Seattle, WA
Danika Scott | Washington, DC
Being a person of color, it is my moral duty to teach my history to my students regardless of their skin color. I can’t tell my students to be honest upstanders and then turn around and give them half truths also known as lies, being a bystander.
Jason Friesen | Bellevue, WA
Jenny Wrenson | Saint Paul, MN
Elizabeth Ebersole | Seattle, WA
Sara Shenk | Ithaca, NY
Katherine Gillies | Evanston, IL
Teaching with a racial justice lens is necessary to foster a culture of belonging and dignity in one of our children's first communities -- our classrooms.
Melissa Hausser | Chicago, IL
Susannah "Sukie" Keita | Phoenix, AZ
I live in a right-to-work state and I taught for a private higher education institution for over a decade. I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else, especially educators in public institutions where they are guaranteed protection by law. When our little dance department dared to confront racism directly through meetings and stage choreography, we were silenced. Students who advocated for change were told they were being divisive while faculty were accused of failing to guide them in civil discourse. Two of us were terminated. The bills coming down the pipeline in so many states, including my home state of Arizona, are designed to end educators' freedoms and protections under the law. We must help students understand the roots of U.S. racism, not deceive them.
Morgan Wright | Grand Rapids, MI
Michelle Sloan | Seattle, WA
Censoring curriculum that ignores the full history of the United States creates a false narrative. Educators and history makers should be free to write curriculum and include in history books the complete history not just the history of the conqueror. As we become more aware of the history that has been left out of our Nations narrative we should be free to re-write, and include a history that acknowledge leaders and significant events from all races and cultures within our nations past.
Casey Phalen | Dorchester, MA
Kate Branson | Indianapolis, IN
Trust teachers!
Maija Whitegon | Minneapolis, MN
Leandra Sunseri | Cedar Falls, IA
As James Baldwin said "nothing can be changed unless it is faced."
Rose Shulman | Traphill, NC
The Federal GOP representatives are working on bills to outlaw CRT in NC. It is starting to trickle down to school boards here too. We need to stick together and defeat this conspiracy driven craziness.
Stacy Tehrani | Olney, MD
We need to do our best to teach accurate and complete history, not watered down versions that ignore embarrassing parts of the past for White people. Our kids deserve the truth.
Emily Schmeling-Fremder | Minneapolis, MN
I will not whitewash history in my classroom. We have the responsibility to teach students, even in elementary, the truth of racism in this country. The recent banning of books in many states is a grim reminder that there are large populations trying to hide the true history from students, and trying to take away important representation of cultures.
Amber Wixtrom | Springfield, VA
I believe students have a right to know the truth and to become advocates for the human rights of all!
Selected Pledges
Click on pledge below to read many more.
As an educator who is serious about teaching the truth I will not be bullied into silence. I will do my part in the fight for equity and equality by making sure my students are most equipped to fight this ugliness in the real world.
Yes, the truth of American history needs to be taught, but also its impact on the rest of the world, such as its role in WWII. I just finished teaching a college-level course on the Holocaust, and could not believe how little the students knew about the rest of the world’s participation in the war! They seemed to believe that WWII was ended by the US alone!
“When you begin to do things that raise the achievement of the poorest and disenfranchised students, you may not always get applause. You need to be ready for that.” Dr. Asa Hilliard
“Resistance is a powerful motivator precisely because it enables us to fulfill our longing to achieve our goals while letting us boldly recognize and name the obstacles to those achievements.”
Dr. Derrick Bell
Our young people deserve the truth and it is our kuleana (responsibility) to give space and opportunity for the truth and the difficult conversations.
If we don’t teach it all, we teach nothing…
Social justice is a major theme of my Humanities 7 course, and my school uses Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s HILL framework (development of identity, skills, knowledge, Criticality) to frame our entire curriculum. Student agency through research work and essay writing, and action-oriented civic engagement work, define what we “cover” in my course.