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15 Jan, 4 tweets, 3 min read
"One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods [about Reconstruction] & the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism & stunted with myths." -- Dr. Martin Luther King (born #tdih 1929) in Du Bois tribute ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/dr-king-o…
Unfortunately (but no surprise), we found that many of the myths W. E. B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King described still prevail in state standards on Reconstruction.

Please read & share new national report, "Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle" here: teachreconstructionreport.org short descriptions and b/w images representing findings from
Many states have efforts (grassroots initiated) to tell more honest U.S. history (incl. Reconstruction) -- and now face anti-history ("anti-CRT") attacks to try to limit classes to rote textbook instruction.

State assessments ⬇️incl. relevant bills.
teachreconstructionreport.org
So, for those following 🧵who are not teachers: Please use your voice & networks to support teachers who #TeachOutsideTextbook, and state or district efforts to positively revise standards. Go to school board meetings. Write letters to editor. More: zinnedproject.org/news/teachtrut… Black and white photo of W. E. B. Du Bois -- headshot with s

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More from @ZinnEdProject

Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
16 Jan
#tdih 1865 demands by Black ministers after Ebenezer Creek Massacre led to Special Field Order #15 -- a short-lived land distribution to freed people. They established civic institutions, schools, militia (to defend from Klan), & more. #TeachReconstruction
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/spec…
"If the government Haveing concluded to befriend Its late enemies. . . "-- Oct. 1865

Read petitions from freedpeople after Johnson ordered that land be restored to former Confederates.

At Freedmen and Southern Society Project, here:
freedmen.umd.edu/Edisto%20petit… h/t
@Stephen_A_West Black text on white backgro...
We recommend "Crossing Ebenezer Creek," a YA book of historical fiction by @tonyaboldenbook for HS students (and adults) about massacre that led to demands by Black ministers for Field Order #15. (Check out more of Tonya Bolden's books for young readers.)

zinnedproject.org/materials/cros…
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
14 Jan
#tdih 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention met with a majority of Black delegates, adopting a constitution that provided for all people regardless of race, economic class, or gender. "SC Constitution was revolutionary."

#TeachReconstruction 🧵zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/Sout…
"The 1868 Constitution abolished debtors’ prison, provided for public education, rights for women, abolished property ownership as a qualification for office holding. . . Provisions [in schools] for the deaf and blind were also ordered. Black Codes were overturned." And more.
"It was in 1868, in state after state, when Black men, many of them formerly enslaved, gathered with white men, many of them poor & disempowered until Reconstruction, to rewrite the constitutions of the South." - Adam Sanchez

⬇️ w/ Lerone Bennett quotes
zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our…
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
12 Jan
"In aftermath of [Jan. 6] insurrection. . . many leading historians drew parallels between the violence & the Reconstruction era. . ."
What do students learn of era? See TIME article by @OBWax on release of ZEP report on teaching of Reconstruction ⬇️.
time.com/6128421/teachi…
"While many states expected students to know why Reconstruction failed, the report found less of a focus on the era’s successes — or efforts to help ensure Black Americans could be full citizens."
"The researchers also found the standards tended to focus on events on the federal level. . . which can skew teaching towards the actions of white people at the expense of stories of Black Americans’ resilience, whether at the community level . . .
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
11 Jan
"Thousands of largely female workers engaged in a successful walkout, standing firm against mill owners, militia, & police. Meetings were translated into nearly 30 languages." -- Robert Forrant on Lawrence, Mass. Bread and Roses Strike, began #tdih 1912 ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/brea…
Contrary to standard narrative, Bread & Roses Strike was not a spontaneous walkout. The pay cut was flashpoint, but block-by-block neighborhood organizing had taken place for months in advance of the New Year. Workers were fed up & they were ready. @iww
zinnedproject.org/materials/brea…
"To suggest that 1912 strike started in a flash over a wage cut diminishes purposeful behavior of immigrant laborers who built unity out of diversity. It also diminishes the importance of organized labor and other org. efforts to challenge injustices today. . ." -- Robert Forrant
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
10 Jan
#tdih 1966: Vernon Dahmer killed when home (with family inside) was firebombed by KKK.

Day before he'd offered to pay poll tax for anyone who could not afford to register to vote. #Terrorism (Year AFTER '65 VRA, still poll tax in local Miss. elections.) zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/vern…
Four of Dahmer's sons served in U.S. military to "defend democracy," only to have their father murdered in fight for right to vote in US. Came home for funeral. Dahmer active in @NAACP & ally of SNCC.

📷 in tweet ⬆️ by Chris McNair (Denise McNair's father) via @JMitchellNews.
"For Mr. Dahmer, voting was only way to move from second class to full citizenship. [As a teenager], I was spellbound as [he talked] about a subject that was so verboten that one could be killed for it." -- SNCC veteran @JoyceLadner9

Read more by Ladner: civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/… Head and shoulders of young woman in overalls at a microphonMan seated in suit, Vernon Dahmer
Read 9 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
9 Jan
In Nov. of 1863, Sgt. William Walker organized his soldiers to put down their weapons to protest the Union policy of paying Black soldiers a fraction of what was paid to white soldiers. Walker, a formerly enslaved man, served as an officer in 3rd SC Volunteers. 🧵 1/4
Walker & his soldiers said they “would not do duty any longer for $7/month.” Pay was not only area of inequality. Black troops died at three times the rate of white troops b/c they were they assigned the hardest, harshest work duties and often denied access to medical care. 2/4
“For an account of the treatment that has been given to the men of the 3rd Regt S. C. Vols by a large majority of their officers,” Walker declared at his court-martial, “nine-tenths of those now in service there will be my witness that it has been tyrannical in the extreme.” 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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