[From Stone Mountain to the Stonewall Inn, the #TeachTruth
National Day of Action fights back against anti-history legislation. ]
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HISTORY IS A HUMAN RIGHT  
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Jesse Hagopian
May 24, 2023
Word in Black
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_ From Stone Mountain to the Stonewall Inn, the #TeachTruth National
Day of Action fights back against anti-history legislation. _

Pasadena MD at Banned Books Photo Booth, June 2022, Photograph
courtesy of Lynda Davis, Zinn Education Project

 

With almost half of all students in the United States attending a
school whose educators have been given educational gag orders to
prohibit them from teaching honestly about the history of systemic
racism, a grassroots network of educators, parents, and students
across the country are organizing a #TeachTruth National Day of
Action on June 10, 2023
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to fight back. 

Research
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the CRT Forward Tracking Project out of the UCLA Law School reveals
that measures attacking truthful teaching about race have been passed
at either the federal, state, or local level in every state except
Vermont — laws that impact “over 22 million public school
children, almost half of the country’s 50.8 million public school
students.”

The impact of these anti-history laws is difficult to overstate. In
Iowa, high school teacher Greg Wickenkamp asked his superintendent,
“Knowing that I should stick to the facts, and knowing that to say
‘slavery was wrong,’ that’s not a fact, that’s a stance, is it
acceptable for me to teach students that slavery was wrong?” Instead
of giving the only morally acceptable answer—”Yes! Slavery was
wrong” — Noll replied
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“We had people that were slaves within our state. We’re not
supposed to say to [students], ‘How does that make you feel?’ We
can’t — or, ‘Does that make you feel bad?’ We’re not to do
that part of it.”

Wickenkamp described another attack 
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an Iowa educator that highlights that the worst attacks have been
perpetrated against women of color: “I had a colleague who was a
Latina teacher. She was pushed out because of hostile treatment. The
strain and hostility she faced was much worse than anything I faced. I
don’t know if she’ll return to teaching or not, but she was the
first generation in her family to go to college — her case is
markedly more challenging because of systemic factors.”

Experiences such as those in Iowa have been all too common around the
country as attacks on truthful teaching about race, gender, and
sexuality are being used as a campaign strategy for the Republican
Party. Chris Guerrieri, a 22-year veteran teacher from Duval County,
Florida, explained
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local media, “An admin of the district recently told the media
specialist that if you’re teaching slavery, make sure you’re
teaching the positive sides of it as well.” 

AN ADMIN OF THE DISTRICT RECENTLY TOLD THE MEDIA SPECIALIST THAT IF
YOU’RE TEACHING SLAVERY, MAKE SURE YOU’RE TEACHING THE POSITIVE
SIDES OF IT AS WELL.

CHRIS GUERRIERI, 22-YEAR VETERAN TEACHER IN FLORIDA

Another educator — in Florida, where a bill was recently passed to
make it a third-degree felony (carrying up to five years in jail and a
$5,000 fine) to be caught with verboten books on race, gender, or
sexuality — responded to a survey by the Zinn Education Project
(ZEP), saying, “I’m terrified to say anything about enslavement
because it might make students ‘uncomfortable.’ I also can’t
recommend ANY books because a parent might not like it and then I
could be charged with a felony.” 

Another spoke to the way these laws are discouraging many educators
from engaging in antiracist lessons: “It is creating a chilling
effect on education. We continue to teach the truth, but with much
less certainty what the consequences will be for doing so.” As of
June 2022, The Washington Post had identified at least 160
educators 
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lost their job or resigned because they taught about race or LGBTQ+
issues — and there are undoubtedly scores more charged with
violating anti-truth laws who have been pushed out of the classroom
that have gone unreported.

Faced with this assault on the truth, educators around the country are
turning the world into their classroom on June 10 and defying the
billionaires funding
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attack on antiracist education with public pedagogy at an array of
creative events. In Lansing, Michigan, organizers are gathering at the
corner where Earl Little — father of Malcolm X — was almost
certainly lynched by being thrown in front of a streetcar. They’re
walking to the hospital where he died to deliver banned children’s
books to the kids in their care. Along the way, they plan to chalk the
sidewalks with historical information about the Black Freedom
Struggle.

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In Boston, the Ethnic Studies Organizing Committee is meeting at the
former headquarters of the city’s Black Panther Party chapter to
help educate people about history that often gets left out of
corporate textbooks. 

In New York City, there are multiple gatherings, including one
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the Stonewall Inn
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legendary Black transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson helped lead a
rebellion against a police raid that became the inspiration for the
annual Pride demonstrations around the country. 

“At Stonewall, we will discuss what took place within those historic
walls in 1969, and what action we can take to support LGBTQIA+ rights
today,” organizers wrote. “We will share stories about LGBTQIA+
history that often go overlooked.”

In Stone Mountain, Georgia, the Stone Mountain Action Coalition
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rally at Stone Mountain Park, site of the largest Confederate monument
in the world. The engraving on the side of Stone Mountain depicts
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Generals Robert
E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. 

Organizers will read aloud the picture book, “That Flag
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Fryer Brown, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith), a story about two young
girls — one Black, one white — whose friendship is tested when the
white girl’s family displays the Confederate flag and they learn the
truth about its racist history.

IT IS CREATING A CHILLING EFFECT ON EDUCATION. WE CONTINUE TO TEACH
THE TRUTH, BUT WITH MUCH LESS CERTAINTY WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE
FOR DOING SO.

In Harmony, Mississippi, organizers are planning an event to highlight
the rich contributions to the Black Freedom Struggle that people from
their town have made. During the summer of 1964, members of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organized a Freedom School
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in the Harmony community.

The Teach Truth Day of Action events respond to right-wing attacks
that have deep roots. During the late 1940s and 50s, the second Red
Scare (characterized by the attacks
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by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and others on anyone they wanted to discredit
by labeling them communists) was accompanied by the Lavender Scare
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of LGBTQ+ people and their mass firing from government service. The
combination of the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare led to the firing
of thousands of teachers around the country.

Just as the Red Scare and Lavender Scare were used to purge teachers
and prohibit discussion of social and racial justice in school, the
attacks on what history deniers have labeled “critical race
theory” and “gender ideology” are used today to fire educators
and exclude discussions about structural racism, sexism, transphobia,
and homophobia.

We now live in an era defined by the rise of anti-truth and
anti-history laws. The outlawing of an honest education represents a
sharp turn toward authoritarianism in the United States — what
historian Barbara Ransby_ _has called proto-fascism
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where now almost half of students are subjected to some form of
banning of the truth about systemic racism and oppression.

THE GOAL OF THESE LAWS IS TO DENY YOUNG PEOPLE ACCESS TO THE LESSONS
OF HISTORY THAT COULD AID IN BUILDING STRUGGLES AGAINST INEQUITY.  

The goal of these laws is to deny young people access to the lessons
of history that could aid in building struggles against inequity.  

History is a human right. The struggle for social justice is many
things. However, especially in this era, it must include the
recognition of the right to learn honest history — particularly
about social movements that have challenged injustice. Without
truthful accounts of history and the truthful transmission of that
history to the next generations, young people are robbed of the first
condition of a democratic society — access to the knowledge needed
to shape the future.

You, too, can join the #TeachTruth National Day of Action on June 10
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Find an event near you. Or, organize your own. An increasing number
of communities refuse to repeat the scapegoating and paranoia of the
McCarthy era; we won’t let them use race, gender, and sexuality to
divide and conquer us.

Tyler Walker, a high school language arts teacher from Austin, Texas,
drove this point home when he signed the Zinn Education Project’s
“Pledge to Teach the Truth
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wrote “Students need to know the wonderful stories of the brave
folks that fought against systems of oppression and sparked hope and
solidarity for the creation of a freer, kinder world.”

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_Jesse Hagopian is a high school teacher in Seattle, an editor
for Rethinking Schools [[link removed]] magazine, an
organizer with Black Lives Matter at School
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leadership team of the Zinn Education Project
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forthcoming book from Haymarket Books, Teach Truth: The Attack on
Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Antiracist Education, and
the co-editor of the books, Teaching for Black Lives
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School
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and Teachers Unions and Social Justice.
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can connect with Jesse on Twitter, @jessedhagopian
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* teaching history
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* teaching
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* Teaching About Racism
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