The PBS News Hour recently aired a report titled “A look at what’s behind the efforts to reshape how American history is taught.” Correspondent Paul Solman focused on how many educators are adjusting their classrooms to comply with state laws that limit the presentation of topics on race and civil rights history. Solman did not mention the laws of specific states in this story, but some states that passed legislation restricting the discussion of racial history include Florida, Texas, Virginia and Idaho. Lawmakers behind these bills believe that students were being taught to hate America and that White students were particularly made to feel guilty about our country’s participation in the institution of chattel slavery in the South.

Solman featured students competing in the National History Day in College Park, Maryland, who were allowed to examine primary sources in their research on subjects of their choosing, including the composition of the Declaration of Independence, the progression of labor unions, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. I was very impressed watching Julia Jones, an eighth-grade finalist, discuss her research on U.S. school desegregation. Julia’s analysis was insightful and keen, as she precisely explained how the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling did not immediately end the separation of Black and White students in public schools. She used her middle school in Richmond, Virginia, as the principal emphasis of her findings, stating that “the graduating classes remained almost 100% White until 1969.” Julia found that the following school year, “almost 5,000 White students” did not return.

Julia’s research is an excellent example of what students can learn and discover when history is taught to encourage them to assess events after being guided to analyze facts on their own. As the cameras panned to the other students’ research projects and their trifold posterboards, the excitement about what they studied was evident as they smiled and engaged with people viewing their work. Events like National History Day, however, will be more challenging to plan in the future due to federal funding cuts from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Solman explained that private donors contributed to saving this year’s program after $336,000 in grant funding was eliminated.

I wish more lawmakers who have been hostile to the teaching of Black history and the history of other people of color could see the impact of National History Day and similar programs on students. Many children are eager to learn about incidents that are still hard even for adults to discuss, and I remain a firm believer that in covering these topics students will be motivated to help our nation not repeat its most grotesque sins. In Solman’s report, I did agree with some of the comments of Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow. Gonzalez asserted that history must be communicated in “proper context,” while admitting that racism remains a problem in our society. For me, proper context has been the creative method of storytelling. I’ve done this in my Black History Month lectures at Ohio State University’s Lima campus and found it to be constructive in connecting with students. I never tell students what they ought to think but instead push them to come to their conclusions. For example, I shared earlier this year that I did a Juneteenth lecture in February for OSU Lima that featured the life of John Henry “Jack” Yates, a former Texas slave and Baptist minister. One of my English students who attended my talk remembered learning about Yates from one of her high school history teachers. Her sharing this prompted questions from her peers, and we had a positive and beneficial discussion. The other students who learned about Yates for the first time were moved by his faith in Christ and preaching of the Gospel, as Yates tirelessly worked to make a better life for himself and his family.

As the teaching of American history continues to be deliberated, I am reminded of one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s warnings that “there is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance.” We don’t want this generation of students to be ignorant, and if we properly teach the truth, we can prevent them from feeling guilty about our past.

Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University’s Lima campus. Email her at smojc.jj@gmail.com. Follow her on X: @JjSmojc. To find out more about Jessica Johnson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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