The History of History

A collection of resources exploring the ways that historians and history educators have approached some key themes in the American past.

Colonial Era

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20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
The Founding

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Slavery & Emancipation

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Civil War & Reconstruction

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
American Indians

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Feminism & Women's Rights

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
World Wars

View Connections

17
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Civil Rights Movement

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Capitalism & Class

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
Cold War

View Connections

20
The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch
The Rise of Trump

View Connections

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The History of History

Slavery & Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Memory / Study

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

"Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861." Painted by Eyre Crowe.
www.slaveryimages.org

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

...ourselves free men.” Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, forthcoming in 2018 from Simon and Schuster.

Executive Summary
American enslavement of Africans defined the nature and limits of American liberty; it influenced the creation and development of the major political and social institutions of the nation; and it was a cornerstone of the American prosperity that fueled our industrial revolution. It’s not simply an event in our history; it’s central to our history.
Slavery’s long reach continues into the present day. The persistent and wide socioeconomic and legal disparities that African Americans face today and the backlash that seems to follow every African-American advancement trace their roots to slavery and its aftermath. If we are to understand the world today, we must understand slavery’s history and continuing impact.
Of course, Africans were not the only people enslaved in the Americas. Before setting a course for extermination, colonial powers enslaved Native people en masse. Although this report focuses on the lasting influence of African enslavement, the legacies of racism and white supremacy that plague our country today are a direct result of racial theories that arose to justify enslaving both Native and African people.
Unfortunately, research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 shows that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement. We surveyed U.S. high school seniors and social studies teachers, analyzed a selection of state content standards, and reviewed 10 popular U.S. history textbooks. The research indicates that:
High school seniors struggle on even the most basic questions about American enslavement of Africans.
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
Two-thirds (68 percent) don’t know that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students (22 percent) can correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.
Teachers are serious about teaching slavery, but there’s a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom.
Although teachers overwhelmingly (over 90 percent) claim they feel “comfortable” discussing slavery in their classrooms, their responses to open-ended questions reveal profound unease around the topic.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers find their textbooks inadequate.
Popular textbooks fail to provide comprehensive coverage of slavery and enslaved peoples.
The best textbook achieved a score of 70 percent against our rubric of what should be included in the study of American slavery; the average score was 46 percent.

View on Southern Poverty Law Center

View Connections

Slavery & Emancipation

20

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

by Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Johnson

Why There Was a Civil War

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.

by Yoni Appelbaum

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

by James Oakes

What Happens to Middle School Kids When You Teach Them About Slavery? Here’s a Vivid Example.

The topic is emotional. That’s not a bad thing.

by Mary Niall Mitchell, Kate Shuster

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman

Pushing the Dual Emancipation Thesis Beyond its Troublesome Origins

"Masterless Men" shows how poor whites benefited from slavery's end, but does not diminish the experiences of the enslaved.

by Adrienne Petty

Is the Greatest Collection of Slave Narratives Tainted by Racism?

How Depression-Era racial dynamics may have shaped our understanding of antebellum enslaved life.

by Rebecca Onion

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

by Sean Wilentz

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

by Richard Kreitner

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

via Southern Poverty Law Center

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

by Matt Miller

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.

by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson

Slavery and the Guardian: The Ties That Bind Us

There is an illusion at the centre of British history that conceals the role of slavery in building the nation. Here’s how I fell for it.

by David Olusoga

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.

by Daniel Koch

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