Black history is under attack

By insisting on a version of Black history that removes people like James Baldwin and makes the teaching of the Black Lives Matter movement optional, this version of Black history erases the essential role we’ve played in American history.

When the Communist dictator Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia in the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge instituted a cultural genocide known as “Year Zero.” The concept was simple: all traditions and history were erased. Books were burned, schools and universities closed, and sharing of knowledge of anything that happened before Year Zero was prohibited. Those who resisted were killed as part of the Cambodian genocide that claimed over 1 million lives.

When African slaves first came to the Americas, we experienced a cultural genocide as well. Countless lives were lost between the continents, carrying with them knowledge, traditions and culture. On plantations across the U.S., our history went unrecorded and our graves unmarked.

Our families were separated before traditions could be passed on. Reading and writing were prohibited. Frederick Douglass, one of the most brilliant men in American history, did not know his birth date or birth year with certainty because he was born into slavery.

Because we know what it is like to have our history erased, Black Americans value our history on this continent.

Because we know the consequences of cultural genocide, we must also sound the alarm. Black History is under attack.

On Feb. 1, 2023 — the first day of Black History Month — the College Board announced it would capitulate to the demands of Florida Gov. Ron Desantis and remove significant portions of the curriculum from its Advanced Placement course in African American Studies. This is the latest of many efforts to remove Black culture and history, especially its intersections with women and LGBTQ Americans, from public school curriculum.

However, conservative governments aren’t removing “critical race theory” from elementary and high schools because it was never taught there in the first place. Instead, they’re creating a Year Zero of their own that whitewashes American history and removes much of the context of Black suffering and resistance.

By insisting on a version of Black history that removes people like James Baldwin and makes the teaching of the Black Lives Matter movement optional, this version of Black history erases the essential role we’ve played in American history. African Americans, Black women, queer people of color, and many others have worked for four centuries to make American democracy something that better approaches justice.

Instead of eliminating critical race theory, conservative state governments are insisting on removing critical thinking. Two years ago, the North Carolina House (where I served for 20 years) considered House Bill 324, a bill that went so far as to encourage the “impartial” (as in, neutral, detached, disinterested) “teaching of slavery, segregation and racial oppression.” By removing the ability of educators to make a moral judgment on these systems of oppression — or making them too scared to do so — this version of history opens the door to a version of democracy we do not want to experience again.

Public schools have a responsibility to teach that slavery, segregation, apartheid, the Holocaust, and other regimes of oppression are morally reprehensible, so they are never again repeated.

The final version of HB324, which passed both houses of the North Carolina legislature, stated that “Public school units shall not promote that … the United States was created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex.” Does that mean teachers can’t teach that the Constitution protected the institution of slavery? Thanks to a veto by Gov. Roy Cooper, we don’t know what sort of pretzel logic educators would have had to use to resolve these contradictions.

Unfortunately, other Southern states are already feeling a chilling effect in the classroom. As I said on the U.S. House floor, “This February, all Americans must recommit to teaching Black history in our homes, in our schools, in our churches, on TV, on Twitter, and yes, even in the halls of Congress. We must be unafraid to ‘say Black’ and teach our history and heritage.” Because if we fail, someday, somewhere, someone will have to endure what countless Black Americans endured to win our freedom.