Grading The States On Teaching Of Civil Rights History

When this nation was founded, most African-Americans in the country were slaves. Slavery was even written into the Constitution as being permissible, and the Constitution counted those individuals in slavery as only 3/5 of a person. And even after slavery was ended with a bloody civil war, African-Americans were not given the same rights as other Americans -- especially in the South, which had a segregated society.

It took many more decades of struggle by thousands of people of all ages, races, and sexes (many of whom were beaten, jailed, or killed) for the nation to finally pass a series of Civil Rights Acts that guaranteed all citizens would be treated equally under the law. This did not eliminate racism in the United States, but it was a giant step achieving that goal.

Now a reasonable person might think that such a landmark battle for equal rights would be included in our history books and taught in all our schools. Sadly it is not. The schools in far too many states teach very little, if anything, about the long battle for civil rights in this country.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance Program did a survey of the 50 states, and then graded each state on how much and how well they are teaching the civil rights history of the United States. The results of that survey are shown in the charts above. A whopping 20 states received a grade of "F", and another 13 could only manage a "D". Only 6 states got a "C", and 8 states got a "B". And only 3 states got a grade of "A". That's 33 states that should be ashamed of themselves for failing to teach even a modicum of this valuable history -- history that no American should ever forget.

Now one might think that the states doing the poorest job of teaching civil rights history would be the Southern States -- the states that did the most to deny those rights in the past. But that is not true. Most of the Southern States are actually doing the best job of teaching this history. Note that all three of the states with an "A" are in the South, and many more received a "B" or "C". They are not the problem.

It turns out that the states that are the "whitest", the ones with the least percentage of minorities in their total population, are the states doing the poorest job of teaching civil rights history. This poses an important question -- why are these "white" states doing such a poor job. Do they not care about the rights of those different from themselves? Do they not think civil rights history is important? Or are they ashamed of that history and want to forget or ignore it?

Whatever the reason, it is wrong and inadequate. Forgetting or ignoring history is just an invitation to repeat it, and that is something we must never allow to happen. And personally, I consider this civil rights history to be a glorious page in our nation's history. It shows that courageous and decent people can make a difference, and that this nation can change for the better. We should proudly teach that history -- both to honor the thousands who struggled for those rights, and the country that could change.