![]() Barnett chose a state history book written by John Bettersworth, an author who included “pro-white, anti-integrationist narratives” and “seemed stuck in the same Old South and Lost Cause mentality” of the state history authors that came before him, according to a 2010 report by the historian Rebecca Davis.īy 1970, a state textbook review committee appointed by top leaders had begun choosing what schools could buy with state money. Ross Barnett, a segregationist, full control over picking what textbooks schools were allowed to use. In 1960, the Mississippi Legislature gave Gov. Board of Education decision, they also refused to sign off on a textbook that offered a more comprehensive perspective of the state’s history around slavery and race. Just as Mississippi’s leaders refused to integrate schools for 16 years after the U.S. Its authors fought for years for its adoption, first against Mississippi’s textbook review committee and then in federal court. What changed? Ninth graders finally began to get their hands on a textbook called “Mississippi: Conflict and Change.” The book, which ultimately won a nonfiction writing award and garnered positive reviews from major news outlets, almost wasn’t released to school districts at all. After 1980 came a version of Mississippi history in textbooks that looked a little more like the history itself: complicated, uncomfortable, sometimes ugly. The way Mississippi students learned about slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the civil rights movement in their home state began to slowly shift in 1980.īefore 1980, students were often taught a whitewashed narrative of the state’s violent past, one that diminished Black people’s suffering and fostered prejudice. ![]() This story is part of The Confederate Reckoning, a collaborative project of USA TODAY Network newsrooms across the South to critically examine the legacy of the Confederacy and its influence on systemic racism today.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |