February is Black History Month, Teach the Truth About Reconstruction

By Alan Singer

As part of Black History Month, the Zinn Education Project has released  a new report on how the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era is taught in American history classes in the United States. It is part of the ZEP campaign to encourage and support history and social studies teachers who “Teach the Truth” about racism in United States history and its defense of Critical Race Theory as an academic discipline. The National Park Service describes the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, roughly 1865 to 1877, as “one of the most complicated, poorly understood, and significant periods in American history.”

According to the Zinn Education Project, for centuries “white historians” have “crudely distorted the Negro’s role in the Reconstruction years.” It argues this was a “conscious and deliberate manipulation of history” to justify racism. As a result, “One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stunted with myths.”

Click here for the full article.

Source: Daily Kos