50 of the nation's first 64 years the President was a slaveholder.
28 of the nation's first 35 years the Speaker of the House was a slaveholder.
President Pro Tem of the Senate, almost always a slaveholder.
Majority of Cabinet members & Supreme Court Justices were slaveholders.
But only a small number of people actually owned slaves (4.9 percent of people in the slaveholding states owned slaves in 1860), so that small minority had an incredible oversampling of power over the government. politifact.com/factchecks/201…
But I guess don't teach that? I guess that isn't important. OK.
Top quote comes from Arguing About Slavery, a lovely book about how you effectively lost your right to petition your government for a redress of grievances because too many people petitioned to end slavery & how John Quincy Adams tried to save the right to petition & end slavery.
In 1839 Sarah and Angelina Grimke and Theodore Weld compiled 1000s of examples of brutality against slaves and published it as American Slavery As It Is. You can read it here: books.google.com/books?id=gFE9A…
The Grimke Sisters were badasses by the way: nps.gov/wori/learn/his…
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I don't teach "critical race theory," but I sure as hell teach this. These are the basic facts of the government, located in its history museums.
So I don't know what they think they can "ban." So ridiculous. 😂
Adding my previous thread about education for democracy:
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.