Last Week Tonight - Teaching American History

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In light of the protests around George Floyd and Trump's attempt to hold his Tulsa campaign rally on Juneteenth, Last Week Tonight looks at how the ways teaching American history in schools has purposely sugar-coated if not purposely misled students on its more pernicious aspects, particularly slavery and institutional racism.

Source

American

Comments

[djbbgoose]

i was taught in middle school that the Civil War was a "state's rights" issue more than slavery

[lurkurheartout]

are you from a southern state? Because revisionist history is taught like actual fact in Southern/Conservative states.

[djbbgoose]

Texas, this was during the Texas history year of social studies

[jessickah]

Yes, my state taught it in that way as well! They always painted Lincoln as an individual who wanted equality and freedom for all. In college, it was a different story. Lincoln didnt necessary want to free the slaves. He only freed slaves in rebelling states. It was a military strategy.

It's all I can think about when I see the Lincoln Project pop up.

[nodaybuttoday27]

Yes! That was my exact thought, and I grew up in Illinois.

Teachers: "The Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about *States' Rights*."

Students: ".....to own slaves"

[ghastly]

Same! & when I was in college, where history was my MAJOR, my professor said that "States' rights" and "Slavery" were both legitimate answers on the final to "the cause of the Civil War."

[alesh101]

Me, too. I was taught in a very southern state and it was never about slavery. Only how the Union tried so hard to change/destroy the southern way of life (slavery) and the southerners fought a noble fight for the right to govern themselves. They also go into far greater detail-strategy, tactics, troops, who was leading them, etc.- about the battles the south won vs the ones they lost.

[kikigirl]

I took AP US History in CT and was taught that by my teacher. x_x